


Relapse

by ani_coolgirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s14e13 Lebanon, M/M, Masturbation, Sibling Incest, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:08:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26068498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ani_coolgirl/pseuds/ani_coolgirl
Summary: Based on the AU glimpsed in 14.13 “Lebanon.” Sam hasn’t seen his brother in fifteen years. He's forcibly shoved off the wagon.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, mentions of Dean Winchester/OFC, mentions of Sam Winchester/OMC
Comments: 15
Kudos: 55





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**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be maybe 5k. Uh, that didn’t happen. If anyone’s wondering why I don’t finish anything, it’s because little baby one-shot fics balloon into giant whales without my say-so. Sam was supposed to be more of a dick originally, but he’s really more desperate instead, lol. Thanks to [mongoliabun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mongoliabun/pseuds/mongoliabun) for acting as my beta!

Sam doesn’t drink. Well, he _drinks_ (there’s a fifteen-year-old scotch in his office for client meetings and he always makes his way to the open bar at least twice at office parties), but most of what’s in his liquor cabinet are untouched gifts. Bottles of wine and sherry and _whatever_ that he accepted with a smile and a laugh, followed by a polite discussion about the year or distillery or something. He’s been to enough wine tastings to fake his way through any conversation and two years ago he invested in a vineyard and he still has no fucking clue why because _he doesn’t drink._ Because drinking reminds him of his father and he hates thinking about his father. So when he’s depressed, he goes running instead.

His therapist thinks it’s very healthy. Compared to his colleagues, it’s probably true. He’s pretty sure most of them are alcoholics, or at least on their way. But if Dr. Scott knew Sam started running because he’s _positive_ his brother would absolutely hate it, he’d probably be less enthusiastic about Sam’s coping methods. Dr. Scott’s a great, down-to-earth guy, and Sam’s reasonably sure the guy actually wants to help him (for what he charges an hour, he better), but Sam’s been lying about his family his whole life and there’s no point in stopping now. Probably makes the whole therapy thing a bit pointless, but at least he gets bi-monthly affirmations that he’s making the right choice by sweating out his feelings instead of drinking them.

So whenever he thinks he might have a repeat of the summer of ‘07 (can only really remember Jessica handing back the ring; the rest is pretty fuzzy), he puts in his AirPods, breaks out his sweats, and does laps around the park until his vision goes gray. Probably not the safest thing, running himself half-dead, but Sam also knows for a fact there are worse ways to go. He could have a heart attack at thirty-seven like Gary Polinski over at Eckles & Taft. Or take a nosedive off a balcony after the wife took the house and kids like Ted Dahl at the bank. Or have his heart ripped out and eaten by a newly-turned werewolf, like those campers the summer before ninth grade.

It’s two-fifteen in the morning and Sam doesn’t wake up from dreams about werewolves. Can’t remember his dreams at all, actually, just jolts awake in the dark, heart hammering in his chest, with the gnawing certainty that he is going to die. There’s a partners meeting in the morning and those always suck, so it's as good an excuse as any for a panic attack. He needs to sleep.

He can’t breathe and shadows are clawing at his brain. He queues up Bon Jovi and is out the door before he can think about it too much.

He’s halfway through _Bed of Roses_ before he can breathe right and his FitBit stops screaming that his heart rate is too high. It’s the fifth night in two weeks he’s done this middle of the night bullshit and thinks he might pin it on that new protein powder shit Brady peddled on him. Pharmacist his ass. He’d get better diet advice from a Kardashian. Back on the smoothie cleanse it is. Kale, kale, and more kale. Why did he ever doubt kale? He might shit green for a month, but it was better than this.

Sam’s still fairly certain he’s going to die, so he does two more laps and pukes in the bushes before heading back to the loft. He nods at the doorman (Billy? That sounds right) and makes a mental note to see if he can get Rochelle to push the meeting an hour. He’s taken about five steps past the front door and in the middle of convincing himself that he can maybe get away with moving the meeting to after lunch when he notices the blood on the floor.

It’s not a lot. But it’s smeared across the tiles where he stepped in it and that’s all it takes for a hand to take a stranglehold on his lungs and _squeeze_.

In the past three years, Sam’s been a guest speaker at fourteen gun control rallies. He’ll take it to his grave that he keeps a loaded pistol in his nightstand (and sometimes, on bad nights, under his pillow). Right now he’s furious that it’s not tucked in his waistband instead. Furious that he has to crouch and creep across his own home. Furious that he can’t just call the police like a normal person because what if it’s some _thing_ instead of some _one_.

Going for the gun is too risky. There’s a silver letter opener in the basket where he drops his mail, so he goes for that instead. It won’t be enough, but maybe he can stall--

He’s hit from the side and on the ground before he can finish a thought. He thought he’d panic. Instead, a simple calm settles on him-- _oh, I’m going to die_ \--then he lashes out with the letter opener, missing entirely (yet satisfied his body remembers it should move at all). In a moment he’s pinned, one hand at his throat and the other wrapped around his wrist, halting the blade in mid-swing.

“Woah, easy, tiger,” his attacker laughs. The voice is raw and tired and achingly familiar and Sam thinks he might throw up again.

“Dean?” The hand at his throat doesn’t let up. “Let me up.” Dean says nothing, and when Sam grabs at the hand at his throat and twists, suddenly there’s a knee against his diaphragm and his head and hand are slammed against the ground. He drops the letter opener. “Jesus--Alexa, turn on the lights.”

The apartment is flooded with light and Sam blinks past the stars in his vision and sees Dean’s face for the first time in fifteen years. Dean blinks back at him and finally the grip on his neck loosens. “Out of practice,” Dean grunts.

“Of course I’m out of practice. Get the hell off me.”

Dean complies but doesn’t help him off the floor. Sam cringes as he rises, rubbing his bruised back and hating that he’ll feel that tomorrow. But the pain directs his anger, so it's easier to brush past his brother to storm over to the wet bar. Because in three minutes he’s gone from _I don’t drink_ to _I need a fucking liquor store_. Like most things, he blames it on Dean. Unfortunately, his usual practice of pretending his family doesn’t exist and moving on is difficult when his brother is standing in his living room.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he snaps, cracking open his Johnnie Walker Blue Label (Christmas gift, two, three years ago? From a client, he thinks. He doesn’t know because _he doesn’t drink_ ) and tipping it into a dusty glass. It splashes and a useless part of his brain starts to calculate how much each drop is worth (thirty-ish bucks?). Whatever. Not his money.

He hears Dean shifting in place like he’s bashful or ashamed or something, but Sam refuses to turn around and check. He takes a swig of the scotch (notes of dark chocolate his ass, he can’t taste shit), cringes, and swallows another. “‘Was in the neighborhood,” Dean mumbles.

“‘In the neighborhood,’” Sam echoes with a mocking twist. “Jesus Christ, you can’t be here, Dean!”

“What, can’t visit my favorite brother?”

_You’re my only brother!_ a Sam of yesteryear cries out with a giggle. This one slams his glass down (there goes another thirty bucks) and spins around. “You’re a goddamn _fugitive!_ ” he shouts. “You know how much work I put into making sure that no one knows you and I--” He cuts himself off. Like he needs to explain.

But Dean just stands there, still blinking like a dumb animal, like he’s waiting for Sam to--what, exactly? Offer him a drink? Catch up on old times? Sam’s so angry he can barely think, which is fine because it makes it easy to ignore how his heart is still pounding away at a million miles an hour.

“Right,” Dean says, and somehow that pisses Sam off more. Pulling this and then folding after two seconds? Typical. “I just needed to--right. I’m gonna...” Dean kneels (slowly, so slowly--it's been a lifetime and Dean is so much _older_ ) grabbing something off the ground.

“Is that my floss?”

Dean only groans as he straightens up, but now Sam’s positive, recognizing the little plastic container resting in Dean’s hand. Sam’s eyes flicker around the apartment. There’s a bottle of vodka sitting on the coffee table next to a sewing kit (a sewing kit he doesn’t need; he can buy new clothes if he needs them, dammit) and a stapler. The couch (the _white_ couch) is spotted red.

So is Dean’s side.

“What the hell happened?” Sam demands, setting down his drink. Dean shakes his head and winces, looking down at his side like noticing the wound for the first time.

“Don’t matter,” Dean mutters, and now some of that anger turns inward. How did he not notice Dean's foggy eyes, the hitch in his step? “M’goin’.”

( _And he_ **_still_ ** _kicked your ass,_ his brain helpfully supplies; Sam kindly tells his brain to fuck off.)

“Christ,” Sam whispers, rubbing at his temples. “Sit down.”

“Said I’ll--”

“Sit the fuck down,” Sam repeats flatly. Their eyes meet and they’re a mirror for his resentment. Then Dean lowers his gaze and shuffles to the couch, dropping like a stone. “Just... don’t move.”

He doesn’t wait for Dean’s grunt of confirmation before storming (fleeing) to the bathroom. The medicine cabinet hangs open, red handprint smearing across its mirrored front. Another bloody streak mars the sink. Never noticed how much in his apartment was white before. He closes the cabinet, takes no note of how the blood doesn’t look out of place on top of his reflection, and fishes the first aid kit out from under the sink. It’s shoved in the back, out of sight, like a guilty secret. Loads of people have first aid kits. Everyone should have a first aid kit. When Sam first got his own place, five apartments ago, he pulled it out and inventoried his supplies once a month like clockwork. Now he’s down to a nebulous every-so-often and doesn’t even dwell on how sloppy that is. He’s never used it.

He comes out waving a damp washcloth (white _again_ , what the hell is wrong with him?) and the kit over his head. “Under the sink, genius.”

Dean hasn’t moved except to tilt his head back and rest his eyes. There’s that brief moment of panic ( _ohmygod he’s dead he’s fucking dead--_ ), then Dean flips him the bird, eyes still firmly shut. Dean doesn’t look up until Sam settles by his side. He squints, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Sam?”

“Yes, me, Sam. You broke into my condo.”

“Wasn’t tha’ hard. Need better locks.”

Dean sounds drunk. The vodka’s half empty, but Sam’s pretty sure it’s the blood loss. Dean flinches when Sam tries to lift his shirt. “I need to see,” Sam scolds, but Dean bats his hands away again.

Dean’s not shy. He’s never been shy. In summers, when they ended up in places like Phoenix or El Paso, where the sun and sidewalk could cook your eggs at high noon, he spent every opportunity strutting around without a shirt, a bare-chested peacock. Showing off for girls, for Sam, for himself, always on the verge of provocative manhood. Sam, boiling or freezing, always hid himself away in billowing t-shirts and jeans zip-tied to stay up. All clothes too big, all of them once belonging to Dean--always, inevitably, shadowed in his brother. He’d watch Dean, training, playing, _sweating_ , with something not quite envy.

It must be bad. Dean only ever hid when he thought Sam couldn’t handle it. The time he nearly lost two fingers to a chupacabra in ‘96 and just said his hand was a little sore. The fall through a rotten staircase in the house they squatted in three years before that, Dean insisting the whole time it was just a twisted ankle when really it was fractured. When Sam walked in on Dean and Vicky Mendoza, going at it right there on the couch in front of God and everybody, and Dean lied to his face and said she’d only been over the one time. It was summer, and Dean never wore his shirt, but Vicky Mendoza didn’t come back.

Dean takes his shirt off himself when it’s clear Sam won't budge. It’s bad, but not the nightmare Sam expected: three jagged lines, short and deep. Claws, most likely. Dean doesn’t squirm as Sam presses the washcloth to his side.

“Wolf?” Sam doesn't care, of course. Certain wounds need additional disinfecting, is all. And Dean’s an idiot if a werewolf managed to get that close and Sam's in no way equipped to deal with intestines.

Dean shakes his head, a sluggish sway back and forth. “No. Shifter, maybe?”

Sam scoffs. “Maybe?”

“Don't matter. Cut its head off.” Dean's grin is half-lidded and wicked, reminding Sam of the taste of bloodlust that always made him sick. “Stopped moving after that.”

Their gazes lock again and Sam looks away first before he’s reminded that the taste wasn’t always repulsive.

“I bet.” If Sam forgets to warn Dean before pouring on the rubbing alcohol then Dean forgets to complain about it. He still groans a little though and Sam's not the least bit smug.

They’re both quiet when Sam gets to actually stitching up the wounds. Sam’s shakier than he’s like to admit at the start (“Don’t forget to--” “I remember.”) and has to remind himself that’s not a bad thing. He signs off on briefs and writes checks--he doesn’t need to know how to suture a cut, let alone do it well. His hands are soft. Any calluses are familiar friends from evenings spent with a barbell. When Dean reaches out for the vodka (drinks directly from the bottle, disgusting), Sam counts a dozen nicks and cuts scattered across his knuckles and palms. The left ring finger bends off-center from a break and healing gone wrong. When Dean’s hand brushes his arm, purely by accident, Sam can feel every ridge like the scrape of sandpaper.

In the end, the results are crooked but functional and Sam is decidedly not proud of himself for that fact. Dean studies them with a grave purse of his lips.

“Not bad,” he says. “Not good, but not bad.”

Jagged scars run up and down Dean’s torso and arms like a kid went nuts with a white crayon. It probably extends below his waistline. Dean’s full of shit.

Sam presses the bandages down more firmly than he needs to. “You want a professional, go to a doctor.” Dean swallows more vodka. Some misses his mouth and slides down his chin. “Or a vet.”

“You were closer.”

He’s pretty sure that’s what Dean says anyway. His eyes are glassy and distant again, speech a slurred mess. Sam wants to check him for fever, but the idea of touching him even more is terrifying. 

“Bullshit,” Sam manages. “Why are you here, Dean?”

“Toldja.”

“No, you didn’t. Why are you here?”

“I toldja, Sammy--”

“It’s Sam,” he corrects automatically. Dean just shakes his head and tries to stand. “Jesus, I’m not kicking you out.”

“Well, it’s pretty clear you don’t want me here,” Dean snaps, mouth twisting into a sneer.

Dean’s bitterness, sharp as his own, unexpectedly slides between his ribs. “You’re right,” he agrees. “I don’t want you here. But you lost a lot of blood, man. I’m not going to throw you out on the street. You could get... robbed.”

Sam is a jackass. It’s a fundamental truth: the sky is blue, the Earth is round, and Samuel Winchester is a jackass. But when the corner of Dean’s lips twitch into a smile that fundamental truth is a little less painful.

“ _Robbed?_ ” Dean repeats with amused disgust as he pulls on his shirt.

“Shut up.”

One foot in the grave and Dean still has this _power_ over him--luring him into ancient ritual banter and roles of big-brother-little-brother. And the worst part is Sam can’t tell if Dean knows he’s doing it, if Dean even realizes that he’s trying to erase fifteen years of silence with a few casual words and one careless visit. It’s infuriating and unfair, and Sam can’t find it within himself to halt the futile effort after Dean’s almost bled out on his couch. Futile, because this won’t change anything come morning. It can’t. It won’t.

Dean’s snickering is swallowed by a yawn. “You can take the bed,” Sam says, but Dean shakes his head, already getting horizontal.

“Can’t move,” he argues, manhandling a pillow under his head. “Comfy.” Before Sam can protest, Dean’s dirty boots are propped on the cushions.

_I’m going to have to burn that thing._ “Right,” Sam sighs, massaging the spot between his eyes. “Sure. Just don’t die in the night, okay?”

His throat closes up as the words pass his lips. The possibility of Dean’s death is suddenly a very real, very urgent possibility. Voicing that possibility out loud feels... unlucky, as though he’s unwittingly blurted out a jinx. Curses are real and complicated; they can’t be cast with hasty words. But leftover playground instinct leaves him wanting to knock on wood, just in case.

Dean waves him off and grumbles something snarky under his breath (obviously snarky--it’s Dean). Sam pulls some spare blankets from the linen closet. By the time he returns, Dean’s already asleep, one hand curled over the edge of the couch ready to catch himself if he falls. Dean’s a fitful sleeper; always has been. Even now his expression pinches, annoyed by the sudden onset of unconsciousness. When they were kids (if they ever were kids), Dean told him it's because he trained in his sleep. At seven, Sam believed him and thought it was the most amazing skill in the world. At twelve, he figured out he was bullshitting him. At eighteen, he was pretty sure his brother was repressed and thought too highly of himself to say the word “nightmares.” Now, Sam believes him again and thinks it’s probably killing him.

Tucking a blanket around Dean’s shoulders relaxes his face, just a bit. Maybe Dean thinks he’s in cover now, hidden from view. It’s true, in a way.

The night creeps into three-thirty and Sam has successfully pissed away the possibility of a productive day before it even really started. He shoots off a text to Rochelle informing her he will not be attending the partners meeting, but he should still make it into the office. It’s the first time he’s missed a meeting in five years.

He thinks about a shower only long enough to decide he doesn’t care if he’s clean or not. There’s a bit of blood on his hands, but he wipes them off on his sweatpants (ninety dollar sweatpants, what the hell was he thinking?) and that’s that. He face-plants on the cold sheets, kicks off his sneakers, tells Alexa to turn off the lights, then remembers he forgot to shut the bedroom door. It’s a habit, one he’s indulged in ever since the first time he got his own room (his _own room;_ not a hotel room too small for three overgrown men, not a dorm room made for two but holding three--his _own room_ ), even though it makes no sense because he lives alone. There’s no one to keep out.

Dean still snores. Sam hears it, a stuttering whistle cutting through the stillness and reminding him there’s life in the next room.

Sam doesn’t bother with the door, but he does take his pistol out of the drawer and stick it under his pillow.

*~*

He dreams about the summer of 1997, but not about werewolves. Instead, it's the week before school starts, and Dean just lost another fight with Dad (discussion; Dad and Dean don’t fight, they _discuss_ ) about letting him drop out. They’re sitting on the porch at Uncle Bobby’s house (that’s wrong--they weren’t anywhere near South Dakota), and Dean’s squinting at the distance and digging his heels into the steps instead of stomping around like some kid. It’s not like Dad can stop him, Dean’s explaining (that’s wrong, Dad’ll kick his ass). He’s eighteen (that’s right). He’s got the car and enough experience that he could totally hunt full time (wrong). He’ll just fail out anyway (right, but he doesn’t have to--). He could take off right now (wrong). Sam can come if he wants.

(Righ--)

Sam wakes up before he can answer. In 1997, he said he wanted to go to high school. Dean laughed and made some joke about high school girls, so Sam called him a jerk and locked himself in the motel bathroom. He’s not sure what he’s going to say this time, but it's pressing that he says _something_. But waking up is a lightning bolt to the heart, the urgency slipping through his fingers as the dream fades.

Beams of sunlight cut through the blinds; if it’s light out, he slept late. He glances at his phone. 6:42. Burning daylight.

Nothing changes in his morning ritual. It’s not so hard pretending his tightly ordered world hasn’t completely fallen apart in a few hours. It’s easy to ignore that he slept in his clothes, the blood in the bathroom, the fact that he dreamed about his brother for the first time in a decade. He takes a cold shower to strip away his exhaustion and so he doesn’t have to think about the fact that the last time he dreamt about his brother he jerked off immediately after. He stares through his bloody reflection as he brushes his teeth and doesn’t think of anything at all.

His well thought out plan of ignoring reality goes out the window when he sees that Dean is still asleep on the couch. He hoped--assumed--Dean would be gone by now, but he’s not that lucky. Dean’s chin is crooked at an awkward angle on the arm of the couch, a spot of the drool smeared across one cheek, one leg dangling off the edge. His t-shirt’s rucked up, showing his bandages, red blossoming in their center; he scratched his stitches in his sleep.

Sam stares for a long time, stalled by his own bewilderment. For years, _years,_ Dean was merely an idea. A half-baked memory that could just as easily have been fabrication: Dean, the big brother that fights monsters for a living. He’s been tempted in the past to lay it all out for someone, all the stories about the evil his family ever killed, about the hotel rooms and the blood and the revenge, just to hear them say he’s insane. It’d be a relief, almost--something that crazy could never be real, and he could finally put it all to rest and move forward in perfecting normalcy. Instead, Dean’s laid out on his couch in all his flesh and bloody glory, tearing down over a decade of calculated denial and dismissal.

He marches to the coffee maker. He hates that old cliche, that “don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee” bullshit, but it’s the perfect excuse now. How can he be expected to handle anything this major before coffee and breakfast? He keeps his back to the couch and goes on pretending he has a handle on things, even after he skips over all the cream and sugar and all the other crap that makes coffee even worse for you and downs it black like his father used to.

Somehow Dean manages to sleep through Sam blending himself a smoothie, taking a shower, and brewing a second pot of coffee but flinches awake the moment the blinds crack open. Dean’s expression is muddled and stupid as he squints against the light, right hand groping for a weapon that’s not there. Sam watches all this out of the corner of his eye as he fixes his tie and scans through the LA Times on his tablet. Dean sits up, holding his side and reaching for the bottle of vodka. Sam seizes it before Dean can grab it.

“‘The hell?” Dean protests as Sam returns the bottle to the cabinet.

“It’s 7:15.”

“So?”

“So, it’s too early for that.”

Dean scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Hey, it’s Happy Hour somewhere.”

Sam looks up from the news long enough to stab a glare in Dean’s direction. “Not. Here.”

Dean frowns, casting a longing look at the bar. Sam steals himself for a fight--he _wants_ a fight, dammit, ready for it now with sleep and coffee under his belt--but Dean just checks his bandages, frown deepening upon seeing the bloodstain. Even just lifting his shirt looks uncomfortable. Disappointed, Sam picks up a pill bottle from the kitchen counter, shakes it, and sets it on the coffee table along with a glass of water.

“Besides, you shouldn’t mix it with these. Just take one, got it? Just one.”

Dean actually takes a moment to read the label, something Sam finds deeply irritating. Grabs things from the liquor cabinet at random, sure, but something handed to him by his own brother--

“Oxycodone?”

“I get headaches,” Sam tosses out, same he’s been telling his doctor for years. Dr. Blackford is professional, understanding, and knows not to push. The headaches are real. They’ve never been as bad as they were twelve years ago, when he lied, cajoled, and begged his way into a prescription so he could make it through finals, but they’re real enough.

“You take Oxy. For headaches.”

Christ, like he needs a lecture from _Dean_ of all people. Dean, who could match their father shot-for-shot by the time he was nineteen. Who drunk dialed Sam on _Sam’s_ twenty-first birthday. But before Sam can make his indignation known, Dean opens his mouth and decides to play completely unfair--

“You taking care of yourself?”

\--and the worse part is he looks like he _means it._ Eyes narrowed, looking him up and down, checking for scrapes and bruises. This, from the guy who almost got his guts ripped out last night. If Dean were close enough, he’d put the back of his hand to Sam’s forehead (even though there’s a thermometer in the bathroom), and Sam would hold his breath the whole time, afraid of breathing wrong and giving something away. But Sam’s not five or fifteen or even twenty-five, and he doesn’t need his big brother looking at him like...

“Just one,” Sam repeats. He pulls on his suit jacket and stops fiddling with his tie. It’s like being hanged in a straightjacket.

Dean drops it (it's what their family does; talk about nothing, let it fester), but his stare haunts him as Sam moves around the apartment, snatching up papers to shove into his suitcase. “Nice suit. Got a date?” Dean’s settled into smug and taunting, much safer territory.

“Work.”

“Working the nine-to-five,” Dean sneers. Sam could show him the zeroes in his paycheck or just gesture around at the condo (he doesn’t do it for the _money_ , but the money sure helps), but his first thought is to ask if Dean has a problem with the movie or just Dolly Parton in general. But that line of thinking is a trap and Sam bites his tongue with satisfying viciousness. He can already imagine how that little back-and-forth would go ( _why, got a thing for the Country Queen, Sammy?_ ), and he won’t get lulled into a round of teasing and indignation. There’s no payoff to playing that game. “Sitting at a desk all day, huh? Sounds... thrilling.” Sam can hear the punchline before Dean even opens his mouth again. “Wait, no. Sounds boring as hell.”

“Well, we can’t all decapitate people for a living,” Sam mutters, snapping his suitcase shut.

A broad grin stretches over Dean’s face. “Saw that, huh?”

Dammit. “A few people asked me if I knew ‘the ax guy from _America’s Most Wanted_.’ I heard about it.”

It was ten people, and he never spent more time lying about his family than in the two weeks after that stupid episode aired. He watched the first five minutes, cried in the bathroom for the duration of the commercial break, sat shaking through the rest, then never watched the show again. The only good thing to come from the whole debacle: he now knows more than seven thousand people in the United States are blessed with the last name “Winchester.” Let his brother be related to one of _them._

“ _The Hatchet King,_ ” Dean proclaims, and _of course_ Dean would be proud of that. “Dude, it was awesome! Even if I’ve never used a hatchet. I should look into that.”

“Jesus, Dean,” he snarls. “Could you just--”

The front door opens.

Sam’s heart seizes as he whirls towards the door. Dean hasn’t moved an inch, but every muscle tenses, ready to spring. It followed Dean. The werewolf or the shapeshifter or whatever it was followed Dean, and now they’re going to have to kill it in his apartment--

It’s not until the little gasp hits his ears that he realizes he’s holding a kitchen knife in a somewhat aggressive manner. A few more seconds pass before he puts together that the woman at the door is in a cleaning services uniform and is probably not a werewolf or shapeshifter. Probably.

“Oh. Um.” Sam looks at the knife in his hand. “This is--”

“M-Mr. Winchester,” the woman stammers, “you’re still here.”

“Yes. Uh--” Luckily, Miracle Maids Home Cleaning uniforms include a name tag. “Clara. Hi.”

“Hello.” Clara’s eyes are round as saucers. Right. Knife. Sam sets it down, but Clara’s eyes flicker around the apartment: knife, Sam, Dean, Dean’s bloodstained clothes, the bloodstained couch, first aid kit, Sam, knife, Dean. Dean smiles in that flirty, disarming way Sam hates, but its usual effect is lost under the week-old stubble and black bruise under his right eye. And the blood. The blood is not helping.

“Clara,” Sam coaxes. Her attention drags back on him and he fakes his best smile. “How can I help you?”

“It’s Thursday.” Already her gaze is drifting back to the couch. “Second Thursday of the month I come in.”

“Right, of course.”

“You’re not usually here.”

“No, I’m not.” Sam’s in the office by six every day like clockwork. Swiss clockwork. Everything’s crumbling, one gear at a time. “Well, I won’t be needing you today, okay, Clara?”

“No?” she asks faintly.

“No,” he repeats firmly. Eyes back on him, good. “So you can leave and we’ll reschedule, alright?”

“Uh-huh.” She’s frozen. For a moment Sam wonders if he’s going to have to force her out the door, but when he moves she flinches to life, shuffling backward. “Mr. Winchester,” she says, nods in his direction, and slams the door shut.

The tension holds for a good minute.

“I hope you tip well,” Dean muses. Sam’s going to hit him. Swear to God, deck him right across the mouth.

Sam drags a hand down his face. “I’m going to work,” he grits out. “If it’s not too much to ask, try not to be seen by anyone else on your way out.”

“What, I find out I have the perfect opportunity to remake my favorite scene from _Maid in Heaven III_ and you want me to--”

“I don’t care what you do, Dean!” Sam snaps. Dean’s smirk is fixed on his face, something mean-spirited and ironic etched into the expression. The viciousness inside Sam falters at that look. But he’s not in the wrong here. He’s _not._ “Just... don’t be here when I get back.”

He grabs his keys off the side table. He means to walk out then, a decisive bit of punctuation at the end of his ultimatum, but he can’t help but check behind him before he does.

Dean’s eyeballing the liquor cabinet. “See ya, Sammy,” he grunts. “Let’s do this again in fifteen years.”

“Let’s not.”

When the door clicks shut, he leans against it for a moment, eyes shut, breathing deeply. He feels sick, a dark stirring in the pit of his stomach.

Fucking protein shakes.

*~*

The biggest mistake Sam ever made are the glass offices in his building. He paid an exorbitant amount to a designer when he first bought the space and every client has loved it since, but he just wants to bash his head on his desk without anyone checking to see if he needs an ambulance. Mostly he wants Rochelle to stop glancing over every five minutes from her side of the glass as if he’s grown a second head (he’s checked, still a negative). Rochelle’s been his AA for three years because she’s impeccably professional, has a better filing system than her predecessor, and makes vegan cupcakes that don’t taste like shit. At the moment Sam’s seriously reconsidering the validity of that first quality, because if she turns around _one more time..._

It’s not really her fault; she’s not the only person staring. She’s actually the most subtle--Mitch from accounting actually dropped his stapler when Sam rounded the corner like they’re in a freakin’ sitcom. He sort of wants to fire Mitch from accounting. Sam’s got an executive bathroom, so he can take all the time he wants to look himself over in the mirror (though in the end, he doesn’t look for long). Sure, he doesn’t look _great,_ but he’s passable. Work appropriate, at least.

Okay, so he looks like shit. But others have come in worse and it’s nobody’s business anyway. He can do his job on three hours of sleep. He’s done it before.

Sam rubs his eyes, banishes baggage and shadows, and gets to work.

Or tries to.

The Gexit-Manifold merger could really use his attention. So could Carissa Pearson, if they want to keep her as a client. He’s got a speech to work on since Stanford invited him back for yet another graduation. He could actually answer some of his own emails, for once.

Instead, he Googles a lunar calendar. Two weeks until the full moon--probably not a werewolf, then.

He usually keeps news sites open throughout the day, but today he closes _The Daily Post_ before the temptation of the obits overwhelms him. The bylaws he reviews bob and weave in his gaze, a restless battle against his own frustration. His precisely-stacked, day-stamped memos grate; he wants to tape things to walls, attack them with permanent markers and highlighters. A headache beats to life behind his left eye, a rhythmic throbbing pulsing from one hemisphere to the other. Not the sudden, nose-bleed inducing cacophonies of his senior year (he might actually kill himself if he had to go through that again), but a drumbeat swelling and conquering a minute at a time.

Yesterday, this all seemed so important. It was important. It _is_ important. Money on the line. Change to be made. Be the change.

_Dean almost died yesterday._

And there it is. Mergers and clients and emails all crushed ruthlessly under the reality of Dean Winchester’s mortality. He didn’t need that reality check. From the time Sam could first string thoughts together ( _that’s my big brother,_ is the first thing he remembers remembering), Dean Winchester’s invulnerability was an assured fact. Sure, he could get hurt, but he couldn’t get _hurt._ Dean was cocksure, unstoppable, invincible: Dean was Superman, and Superman can’t get _hurt._

Sure, Dean has scars. Hell, even Sam has scars, an inevitability of boyhood and the hunting life, no matter how briefly either lasted. But only three are of any importance: the faint line from elbow to shoulder from Sam’s first hunt with Dad and Dean (ghost, typical salt-n-burn, but Dean got thrown into a mirror; didn’t even notice until Sam was taping it up, almost in tears); the raised bump on his right side from accidentally hip-checking a table corner getting between him and Dad (first time more than voices were raised, but it never got to blows; all that matters is that Dean sided with him at the time, even if he spent as much time yelling at Sam afterward as Dad did during); and the Nike-style swoosh on his shin from a piece of glass on the sidewalk (Dean taught him how to ride a bike when Dad was too busy; Dean let go too late or Sam took off too early, but either way Dean hit the ground and when Sam turned around his face and leg were covered in blood but he was laughing and screaming and telling him to GO GO GO and the mark on his chin faded, but the swoosh on his leg never did). All indisputable proof that it can’t get that bad. Dean Winchester gets bumped, but that’s all.

The scars on the Dean of last night have multiplied out from under Sam’s watchful eye. They weren’t bumps and scrapes and memories. They were heartless badges of survival.

Dean almost died yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. And the day--

The executive bathroom locks, so no one says anything when he spends a minute dry-heaving over the toilet. Nothing comes up, thankfully, but the lights only make the dull _ba-dump ba-dump ba-dump_ in his skull worse. When he returns to his desk, Sam drains his mineral water in one go and changes a single word in his Stanford speech. Then he puts his face in his hands and _breathes._

“I am the architect of my life,” he recites. “I build its foundation and choose its contents.” [1]

“I am the architect of my life--”

_Dean almost died yesterday._

“I build its foundation and choose its contents.”

_Dean almost died yester--_

“I am the architect--”

_Dean almost--_

“--I build--”

_Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean._

“Fuck,” Sam whispers.

He jolts at the hollow knock from the office door. Rochelle waits there, arms crossed in front of her holding a manila folder, face expectant. Sam straightens up, runs a hand through his hair, and smiles. Smiling feels like hooks pulling at the corners of his mouth. He gestures for her to come in. 

Rochelle makes sure the door is shut behind her before speaking. She always does that, not just when she looks like she’s delivering an execution. It’s a good habit, solidifying the illusion of privacy. “Mr. Winchester,” she says, with a dip of her head.

_Call me Sam,_ he almost blurts. It’s an absurd urge. No one calls him Sam. Just “Mr. Winchester” from the associates and staff, or “Winchester” from the partners. Older women, heiresses and the like, sometimes call him “Samuel” with a dramatic air and a martini glass. He hasn’t been “call me Sam” since college.

“Rochelle,” he acknowledges. “Do you need something?”

“Only if you have a moment. I know Jameson asked you for notes on Gexit-Manifold.” Just shy of calculating, her gaze remains safely on the side of demure and polite.

His smile thins out. “I have some time,” he replies, careless and generous. He’s got time. He’s got all the time in the fucking world. Unlike--

Rochelle slides the folder across his desk and he knows it's empty without opening it. So professional. She can’t just come in and have a chat with her boss like they’re friends. So she’s seen coming in with a folder in hand--business as usual. It’s not something ever discussed; like most things, Rochelle does it without being asked. It occurs to him that he does not pay her enough, and with some disquiet that he knows nothing about her. Not her birthday or hobbies or family. Is she married? Does she have brothers or sisters? He’s seen the woman five times a week for three years, he should know if she has a goddamn brother.

Sam opens the folder anyway, drags a finger down the empty middle. “Well?”

Rochelle hesitates, but Sam gives her the benefit of the doubt and doesn’t stare while she gathers her thoughts. She’s earned that much. “You look... unwell.”

“Unwell.” That’s one way of putting it.

“Sick,” she clarifies and Sam looks up sharply. Rochelle doesn’t waver. “Company policy states that ill employees should not be in the office if they’ve had symptoms persisting for more than twenty-four hours.”

Sam snorts. “Practical.”

“You wrote the policy. Sir.”

He closes the folder. “Well, it hasn’t been twenty-four hours.” It’s been about eight. Eight hours since Dean waltzed back into his life, careless and reckless like he always is--

“I see.” Rochelle retrieves the folder, folding it back in her arms with practiced grace. “Then I’m sorry to have... interrupted.” She glances at the memo basket, still the same perfect stack as when Sam arrived, completely undisturbed. “Is there anything I can get for you while I’m here?”

“No. No, I’m fine.”

“Of course. If you need--”

“I’m just tired,” Sam insists.

Rochelle tilts her head. “Of course,” she says and Sam fights back an indignant flush. He’s not a child, but then why does he feel like he’s been patted on the head by a well-meaning, but patronizing, teacher? “Should I let Jameson know your notes are coming?”

“Yes, yes please.”

Rochelle turns to leave, but pauses at the door, stealing herself. “Please take care of yourself.” Before Sam can get too incensed about the unsolicited advice, she continues: “People are worried.”

“What?” Sam asks, bewildered. “Why?”

Rochelle’s normally schooled, neutral expression turns equally baffled. “What do you mean? They’re... they’re _worried,_ ” she says as if that clarifies things. “ _I’m_ worried,” she amends. Sam furrows his brow--why does she care, he doesn’t even know anything about her (and he should, he should know)--but Rochelle’s already half out the door. “Take care,” she repeats, and is back at her desk, answering the flashing desk phone and scribbling on a notepad, already back at work.

Sam does take care. He does. He doesn’t drink. Doesn’t smoke. Exercises every day. Eats right (when he doesn’t listen to _Brady_ ). Kale, kale, kale. So much kale. Sleeps... enough. His medication is prescribed by a doctor and everything. He even goes to therapy. Daily affirmations. He takes care.

His insides are raw. His brain is a pulsating bloody mass weighing down on his neck. Dean’s scars have multiplied like cracking ice on a frozen river, but Sam is standing water--still on the surface and befouled with stagnation.

Sam almost makes it to noon before giving up, overwhelmed by exhaustion and spots in his vision. Jameson will get his notes, but they’re so thin they’re practically useless. He mumbles something about lunch as he walks by Rochelle’s desk, cuts her off before she can order his usual chicken salad, and informs her he might be back late. Lunch meeting. It’s lazy bullshit because Rochelle sets his calendar and there are no meetings on there besides the one he already missed. But she only agrees with him and reminds him to call Mrs. Pearson tomorrow. Rochelle’s getting a raise.

He sits in his car for a very long time, no idea of where he’s going or what he’s doing. His car’s a gleaming white Tesla, very practical, very environmentally conscious, and the antithesis of his childhood. He remembers being seven or eight, back when monsters weren’t quite real yet, sitting in the backseat (younger siblings, forever banished to the back) and cracking open the window at gas stations to sniff fumes from the pump. It smelled good back then, something constant in the ever-shuffling scenes of hotel rooms and schools (constant, like leather and gun oil and Dean). Now it makes him vaguely nauseous (as it should; he spent the first third of his life intentionally inhaling poison for God’s sake) and doesn’t evoke even a hint of nostalgia. The Tesla doesn’t smell like anything.

His thumb caresses the steering wheel and he notes absently the worn spot in material where he’s done exactly this too many times. Then he hits the wheel. Once. Twice. Again and again. It’s unsatisfying and he’s afraid he’ll accidentally hit the horn, so he stops. He considers, briefly, returning to the office, but then he thinks of Rochelle saying “take care” and decides that he can do that. He can take care of this.

He will take care of this.

*~*

Dean’s not there when he gets back. Sam’s not disappointed--that wouldn’t make any sense--instead, he’s anxious. His Oxy is still on the table. He downs one dry on the off chance that it’s his headache making him crazy and not the events of the last eight hours. Then he opens all the windows and gets to work.

The cleaning supplies under the sink are all half empty even though he’s never touched them. Someone--Clara, he assumes, maybe somebody else before her--has been using them on the regular. It’s been years since he’s done his own cleaning, but methodical tasks suit him. Dean would always pawn things like that on to him--cleaning, research, digging. Detail work. Grunt work. Younger brother work.

He takes off his jacket, loosens his tie, and goes to work.

The couch, surprisingly, is not beyond saving. A lot of blotting with water and baking soda manages most of the stains, even the blood, though, in the end, he flips the cushions after they dry, digging out thirty-five cents and a wayward receipt in the process. He doesn’t eat on the couch, so he’s not too worried about spilled food or wine giving him an unfortunate reminder at a later date. He spot-cleans the floors and Borax and Windex take care of the bathroom sink and mirror. The bottle of vodka, empty now, goes straight into the recycling and the bar rearranged to hide its absence. The water glass goes in the dishwasher. He checks the fridge, but nothing’s missing. After an hour of cleaning, the apartment has aired out, only a vague chemical scent left behind.

It’s like Dean was never there.

Sam’s knees buckle. He makes it to the couch, but then recoils-- _Dean was there_ \--and just lets his legs fold under him as he drops to the floor.

He expected it to be easy. Walking away all those years ago, Dad’s words stabbing him in the back, Dean’s disappointment haunting his steps--that was easy because at the time he wanted nothing more than to get away. Get away from Dad and his orders and demands and expectations and all the fighting. The endless, endless fighting. He wanted to go to _college,_ a thing eighteen-year-olds _do,_ and the man reacted like he announced he was marrying a stripper and moving to Tahiti. There was no “good luck, son, do your old man proud.” No, instead he’s practically disowned and reminded to not let the door hit his ass on the way out. As if he was the one throwing his life away. As if Dad wasn’t the one who vanished off the face of the Earth without a nickel to his name.

Leaving Dad was easy. Leaving Dean was easy too. Dean, who joked and laughed and never gave a straight fucking answer unless you backed him into a corner. Dean, who didn’t fight for him to stay for a second, just nodded, slipped a handgun in his duffel, and dropped him off at the bus stop. It was easy because when Sam tried to say “You can come too if you want,” like Dean said to him when he was just fourteen and the summers never seemed long enough, Dean cut him off before he could even get the goddamn words out. So he left and didn’t look back. There were scattered phone calls here and there, but after a few years, those tapered off, and with it the ache in his chest.

But now, fifteen years after he shut that door, Dean flung it wide open and he can’t get it closed again. Every inch of his apartment scrubbed clean but it doesn’t matter--Dean has infected his space and his mind and there’s no exorcising him now. Not like this.

He looks at the liquor cabinet. Thinks of the summer of ‘07 (the summer, everything happens in the summer) and looks away. The Oxy needs to do its goddamn job. He should’ve snorted it or something.

A large part of him wants to stay on the floor until the drug kicks in and his brain turns to floaty mush. But he’s been taking the stuff long enough to know it’s not gonna work like that so he drags himself up and tries to piece together a plan. He’s good at that sort of thing, making plans. Good enough for him to start a law firm in the same amount of time it took his peers to make junior associate. After Dad, the idea of working for anyone made his flesh crawl, so really it was the only option. So this is no problem. He just needs to figure out what the hell to do with himself before he crawls out of his skin and into a bottle and doesn’t come out until he’s forgotten his own name--

Sam snorts. Hard to forget your name when it’s on the letterhead.

He circles the condo a few times as if he could undo his hasty erasure with enough patience. But Dean brought nothing but himself when he broke in and left nothing behind but DNA. Sam can’t even remember Dean’s old number, and even if he did it's probably been out of service for a decade. If he had just some clue...

Sam lashes out at the coffee table and magazines he’s never read and the little pile of coins rescued from the couch tumble on the floor. He watches a dime twirl in a tight circle. One of the few habits he couldn’t kick was carrying cash, even after getting a platinum card. The reasoning has always been a vague “just in case” for scenarios he couldn’t imagine, but also couldn’t argue with. The most he managed was making sure his pockets were always absent of change once he graduated. Owning a washer and dryer was a revelation, and the only reason he ever needed change anyway was for dinky coin-ops in the dorms before he moved out. So into tip jars go every quarter.

But not Dean. Money is money. He keeps it all, down to the last penny, just in case.

He didn’t just pull change out of the couch. Sam practically tears off the trash can lid in his haste, plucking from the top of the pile the crumpled up receipt. He smooths it out on the countertop and grimaces at the find.

Biggerson’s. Just seeing the name makes him cringe. He’s heard more than one fast food debate, In-N-Out vs. Five Guys vs. whatever other grease trap refuse people somehow willingly put in their bodies, but Biggerson’s never won a single contest. More than one person swears by their garlic knots, but Sam has a sneaking suspicion real garlic has never touched those knots. It’s disgusting. It’s just the sort of thing Dean adores.

The date on the receipt is for yesterday afternoon and the address is printed at the top. Dean would’ve hunkered down somewhere nearby.

Sam doesn’t let himself think. He pulls up the address on his phone and searches for the cheapest motels around it.

*~*

He doesn’t leave right away. He fiddles with his pistol for a long time but ultimately puts it away. It’s not the same one Dean hid in his bag. That one, pearl-handled and trustworthy, was unloaded into a dumpster an hour after Dean’s final phone call. Careless. Irresponsible even, but something that felt righteous at the time. He bought his Glock after Jessica moved out. It didn’t stop his drinking, but it did stop the itch that lingered since Dean’s last gift went in the garbage.

Dean, of course, was indeed full of shit. Sam drives a good forty-five minutes before hitting the area the Biggerson’s is in and he passes a dozen twenty-four-hour clinics and pharmacies along the way. Calling Sam’s neighborhood “out of the way” is generous. Asshole. Sam doesn’t think about how easily Dean could’ve bled out on the way to the condo.

He squints at the Biggerson’s parking lot as he drives by because it’s not too long past lunchtime and Dean eats like a horse, but by now the crowd’s thinned out and Dean would rather die than drive the minivan or VW bug parked there. The motel parking doesn’t look promising either, but he parks and goes into the front office anyway. A quick glance at the “pool” (drained, with something dubious surrounded by flies at the bottom) and he locks his doors twice.

The worker at the front desk looks up from his phone when Sam walks in and then past him. Sam automatically glances over his shoulder--no one is there--before it hits him. He’s still wearing his suit, and while this place isn’t pay-by-the-hour it’s not exactly the Ritz-Carlton. The guy’s checking for a prostitute. 

An age-old resentment kicks in the back of his mind. _Couldn’t spring for a Holiday Inn, Dean?_ Sam thinks, trying to ignore the way his shoes stick and pull away from the floor.

“Hi,” he says with a smile. He never realized how much he smiled and how much he hates it. “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for somebody.”

Motel guy cocks an eyebrow and looks back down at his phone. “You a cop?” he asks like he already knows the answer.

“No, but--”

“Then I haven’t seen him. Or her. Or them.”

“Look, it’s really important I find him,” Sam insists, and it’s somehow not a lie. He needs to find Dean. It’s important. “He’s about this tall, would’ve paid in cash--”

“I bet,” the guy drawls, and Sam only wonders briefly if assault is worth it. “But there are privacy laws, buddy--”

He doesn’t have time for this. Sam pulls out his wallet and thumbs through his-just-in-case money. The worker trails off as he catches sight of the cash. Anyone who talks about privacy laws like that has been sued before and in a place like this, there’s only one reason for that to go down. “Look, can I see your guestbook or not?” he asks, waving a hundred bucks in the worker’s face.

The man’s eyes narrow, but he takes the bills with two pinched fingers. He pulls a large book from under the counter and drops it with a loud thunk. “I gotta take a piss. You mind waiting here for a minute, sir?” he sneers with an exaggerated hitch of his pants. Sam’s spinning the book around and flipping through the pages the second the backdoor bangs shut.

An honest-to-God physical guestbook. “What decade is this?” Sam mutters as he scans the lines of sloppily written names and dates. He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for, every name a meaningless jumble of letters, until--

_Eric Burdon._ “Bingo,” Sam whispers, a thrill running through him at the discovery. Room 108. Check out--

Checked out three hours ago. Dean is gone.

“Shit.” His elation withers and dies. “ _Shit._ ”

Sam doesn’t wait for the front desk guy to come back. Just walks away, the guestbook still open on the countertop waiting to violate more privacy laws, and sits in the Tesla. He puts his forehead on the steering wheel. He breathes.

He needs a fucking drink.

*~*

The plan is to return to the condo, drink until he passes out, and hope he doesn’t choke on his vomit in his sleep. He’s not exactly a practiced drinker, after all. Because he doesn’t drink.

The laugh he lets out is a little hysterical. Turns out he’s a lot of things he didn’t think he was. Pathetic is one. Desperate is another.

_Clinically depressed,_ adds Dr. Scott. Dr. Scott can fuck off.

He means to go home, but he tools around the shitty little neighborhood he finds himself thinking about the places Dean has been, how most of them probably look just like this. Biggerson’s and shitty motels and shady bars--

Sam slams on the brakes. He’s dimly aware of the angry honking from behind him, but everything fades under the sudden roaring in his ears. Because he’d recognize the black lines and silver rims of pure American muscle anywhere. He’d know it blind. He knows Dean loves that car, has loved it since they were kids, even more, once he could drive it himself. His first girlfriend and surrogate mother all wrapped up one steel package. After all this time, he still...

Sam cuts off three cars and makes an illegal U-turn to get to the seedy bar on the opposite side of the road. It’s a depressing, squat building with the creative moniker of _BAR_ in fritzing red neon, but to Sam, its doors may as well be the entrance to Mecca. He pulls in next to the Impala but doesn’t leave the parking lot right away. Instead, he lingers, and if there was ever any doubt it’s gone now. The paint job is a spotless black gleam, but there’s no guilt as he runs his fingers along her doors, leaving smeared fingerprints behind. He snatches his hand back after a moment, scanning the lot to check if anyone is watching, but no one gives a damn. Everything smells like gasoline.

“Gas guzzler,” he mumbles, and it comes out more affectionate than he means it to.

Inside, the low light hurts his eyes and there’s a single scratched pool table. Barely past four o’clock and there are only three customers: a grizzled old-timer with a half-undone tie and nursing a pint, a young woman muttering to herself and making a pyramid out of her shot glasses, and Dean. Dean, who’s impossible to miss in a room by the back of his neck and the hunch in his shoulders and the way he runs his thumb over the top of the bottle. Relief washes over Sam like a cold bucket of water. He’s been besieged with inexplicable dread the moment Dean left his sight. Now he just has to worry about the state of his brother’s liver.

Dean doesn’t look up when Sam slides into the seat next to him. Doesn’t acknowledge him at all, in fact, until Sam orders a beer he doesn’t intend to drink and takes a sip. Even then Dean just gives him a long side-eye as he swallows. Sam meets his gaze steadily, suppressing the reflexive gag at the taste on his tongue. This is some extraordinarily cheap shit.

“You lost?” Dean deadpans. Sam’s aggravation hits hard and fast and he bites back a smile.

“I was looking for you,” Sam answers. Dean frowns, thumb resuming its restless path over the mouth of his El Sol.

“Well, you found me. What, did a neighbor complain about the serial killer tracking mud on the floors?” Sam shoots a look at the bartender, but he’s busying himself with inventory and not listening in the slightest.

“No. Nothing like that.”

“What then?”

Sam’s lips turn up and for the first time in a long time, the smile feels real. “Dunno. Didn’t get that far.”

Dean snorts and the air of hostility retreats, if only marginally. “Well, you can’t give me any shit. It’s actually Happy Hour now.”

Sam looks around. The older guy’s tie has slumped even further down his neck. The woman’s glass pyramid is now a pile and her forehead lay flush against the table. “I can see that,” Sam agrees. Dean knocks his bottle against Sam’s and takes a deep swallow, finishing off his beer with a flourish. “Dean--”

“Sam, you were pretty clear this morning. So what the hell is this?” Dean interrupts, gesturing between them.

Sam stares at the water rings on the bartop because he can’t think with Dean staring at him like that. Sometimes Dean looks and then sometimes Dean _looks_ and Sam’s always hated that. He’s always done it so easy, turning all of Sam’s defenses into cellophane. Should probably thank him; if Dean hadn’t done it so often so early on, Sam would never have become so proficient a liar. Good enough even to fool Dean, when it was important (there are some things Dean can never, ever know; Sam’d die first). He certainly wouldn’t be as good of a lawyer. Dean’s impatience pushes up against Sam, Dean rapping his knuckles against the wood and gesturing for another round.

The thoughts forming in his mind are reluctant and delicate and voicing them seems ill-advised. Dangerous, even. And there are the past fifteen years screaming in the back of his mind: _you’re ruining it, you’re ruining it!_

_Talking to your brother is normal,_ he argues. _Seeing your family is normal._

The catch, of course, is that he’s not normal, not really. On the surface he’s constructed a nigh-impenetrable facsimile of normalcy; but sometimes, like right now, it’s stretched thin, barely concealing a history of violence and deceit. Below even that lurks a _wrongness_ he doesn’t dare to name or examine too closely. But he’s been pretending very well for a decade and a half that he’s nothing more his piecemeal facade, so he shouldn’t shit all over his life’s ambitions just because of one stupid thing Dean did. Too much of his life has already revolved around the stupid things Dean did. The things he didn’t do. The stupid things Sam’s done and never got to do.

_Dean almost died--_

“I’m sorry,” Sam says lowly, not daring to risk a glance. It’s cowardly, but looking Dean in the eye remains perilous ground.

“...What for?” Dean asks, just as soft. Sam’s eyes shoot up, but there’s nothing malicious in Dean’s expression. He’s looking just past Sam’s left ear instead of right at him, but it’s enough for nervousness to twist inside him, so Sam looks down again.

An immature, despondent side of him wants to reply “for everything,” but it’s simply not true. He doesn’t regret walking (sprinting) away from the life for something less bloody and more stable. No matter what Dean insisted, a picket-fence-apple-pie life is a _good_ thing (not that Sam ended up with either, though not for lack of trying). He left for his sanity and his future and those were good reasons-- _are_ good reasons. No one could argue that, and no one had yet upon hearing his highly sanitized retellings of his life story (though, admittedly, the list of people he’s told it to is quite short). _He_ can’t argue that, not now. He doesn’t regret leaving. Leaving Dean, maybe (more than maybe), but not _leaving_.

“This morning,” Sam settles on. “I shouldn’t have... You’re still healing. I shouldn’t have left like that.”

Dean huffs out a laugh. “I’ve had worse. Don’t need a nurse.”

Sam wants to doubt that, but he knows Dean’s not lying. It doesn’t make him feel better. “Still. You came to me and I told you to take a hike, and that was a crap thing to do. So I’m sorry.”

“Whatever.” The reply is so flippant Sam’s not sure he heard right at first. “It’s not like I called ahead.” Dean claps him on the shoulder twice and gets to his feet. “Good talk. I should hit the road. Burning daylight.”

Dean’s halfway out the door before Sam thinks to move. He’s already fishing his keys out of his pocket, hand resting on the Impala’s door handle by the time Sam catches up. Sam grabs him by the shoulder. “Hey, wait a sec--”

Dean brushes him off in a way that would seem accidental if it came from anyone else, carefully stepping out of his reach and rolling his shoulder back. “Places to be, Sam.”

“It’s four-thirty, Dean, you’re going to hit rush hour.”

“Good thing I’m in a rush.”

“Dean--”

Dean jams the key into the lock, but as he pulls the door open Sam sticks his hand out, slamming it shut before it cracks open more than an inch. Dean rounds on him, face pinched in fury, hands clenching at his side. Honestly, Sam’s surprised he’s still upright; if someone other than Sam had pulled that stunt, they wouldn’t be breathing. “Hands off my--”

“Dean. Please.” He lays off the Impala, hands up in surrender. “I just want to talk.”

“Did that already. You said your piece, I said mine. Not much more to say, is there?”

There’s plenty more to say. There are a decade and a half of things to say, a tangled mess of rants and apologizes, confessions and accusations, all unraveling in a dark corner of his mind. Once compact and isolated, now threading into every breath and thought.

Dean started this. He doesn’t just get to--

“Why did you break into my condo, Dean?”

It’s an obvious question, but it seems to take Dean by surprise anyway, posture curling into a defensive hunch. “What do you mean?”

Sam squashes the urge to parrot the question back at him. He doesn’t want a fight. Not right now, anyway. “Why did you break into my condo? In fact, how did you even know where I lived? We haven’t talked since Stanford.”

“And who’s fault is that?” Dean challenges.

Dean’s. But it’s bait and Sam lets it sail on by. “You came to me, Dean. Why?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Dean whispers, like answering physically hurts. Sam presses harder.

“C’mon, man, you didn’t need to see me. You could’ve taken care of this yourself or sweet-talked your way out of a hospital bill. Hell, even another hunter would’ve made more sense. But you came to me. And I wanna know why.”

There’s a sick kind of thrill, seeing Dean thrown off balance. Sam’s never had the upper hand in any conversation with his brother, a consequence of years’ worth of diaper changes and after-school pickups dangling over his head. He watches Dean squirm knowing that the answer he’s digging for isn’t the one he’s going to get. That would be impossible, but maybe he’ll get close--something to latch on to.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Dean rasps, and now he does look pained, wrapping an arm around his middle to cradle his wounded side. “Sorry I interrupted your perfect life and reminded you that the rest of the world exists outside of your perfect little bubble--”

“You came to me,” Sam repeats. It’s the crux of everything--he didn’t come to Dean, Dean came to _him_. He doesn’t have to feel guilty. “Why, Dean? Why?”

Dean’s fingers dig into his side--if he pops his stitches, Sam’s not fixing them--and tilts his head back to the sky. His breath _drags_ out of his chest. “I don’t know,” Dean says, and it sounds like the truth. “I thought I was holding my guts in. I was so goddamn tired. And I thought I should see you.”

It’s not the answer he wanted, but it’s close enough. “I didn’t think you’d be there,” Dean adds like it’s important. Nonsensical is what it is, but Sam lets it go.

“We’re gonna go back to my place,” Sam says, “and you’re gonna get some more rest. And if you want, you can leave first thing tomorrow. But--” he swallows. “But you don’t have to. Leave right away, I mean.”

When Dean looks at him his expression is flat and for a moment Sam’s sure he pushed too far. But then Dean pulls his hand away from his side, checking it like it should be wet, then puts it back. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Sam’s not sure if it’s exhaustion or pain that forces Dean’s hand, but Sam’s not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. Dean pops open the door to the Impala then nods at Sam’s Tesla. “That your douche-mobile?”

Sam frowns. “It’s electric.”

“That’s what I said.” Dean slides into the driver’s seat of the Impala with an effortless grace that makes Sam’s breath catch for a second. “Lay on, McDouche.” He grins and Sam completely forgets that he’s supposed to hate his brother.

“Clean energy isn’t douchey,” Sam mutters as he starts up his car. It’s the opposite of douchey, actually. Unlike that antique Dean hauls around in, proclaiming to the world that the ozone layer could screw itself.

Sam’s lighter than air. He still checks the rearview every mile for a wide black hood and silver grill he thought he’d forgotten until today.

*~*

The Impala barely fits in Sam’s guest parking spot, jutting out violently against the sea of tiny smart cars and overpriced midlife crises. The sneer doesn’t leave Dean’s face until they’re out of the parking lot. Sam knows this because he’s sure Dean’s going to bolt, so he keeps looking over his shoulder in the least conspicuous manner he can manage all the way to the front door. He hopes the afternoon doorman has as good a memory for faces as Sam does for the names of doormen because he’s not helping Dean look less suspicious.

Dean doesn’t say anything about the clean apartment, but he does wipe his feet before coming inside, so he must have noticed. And then suddenly Sam is nervous--not heart-attack-inducing anxiety from nightmares or coming home from a midnight run to find blood on the floor, but proper first-date jitters kind of nervous. It’s humiliating and makes him feel fifteen years younger in all the worst ways. Dean doesn’t help by standing on the doormat like he’s waiting to be invited in, which makes no sense because he _broke in_ yesterday. It suddenly occurs to Sam that they never had a doormat as kids, which means Dean’s never had one (except that Before Time he knows nothing about--but he’s not even sure if Dean counts that). He’s struck with the image of putting a floormat in the Impala, one of those dumb novelty mats that say things like “I like it dirty” or “Hi, my name is Mat,” and suppresses a hysterical giggle. He’s definitely losing it.

“Make yourself at home,” he says, then winces. Dean raises an eyebrow but goes straight to the liquor cabinet which is not surprising. But it’s still Happy Hour, so Sam won’t say anything about it, just this once. He gestures and Dean grabs a second glass.

“Got anything under a hundred bucks around here?” Dean gripes as he pours, vodka again, mouthing the name on the bottle as he does-- _Spirits of the Tsars,_ silently snapping his _s_ ’s.

“No idea,” Sam replies absently. He doesn’t know where to sit. The couch is too informal, but the kitchen island might make it seem like he’s forcing distance. He doesn’t know where to sit in his own damn home. “Probably not.”

Dean replies with a huff and shoves Sam’s drink in hand before sprawling on the couch, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. Sam shows his displeasure by saying nothing at all and pulls out one of the kitchen island chairs, hunching on it like a gargoyle. The silence is accusatory nevertheless and Sam wonders if they ever had an easy silence. He thinks maybe they did once, in some sweet spot between nine and thirteen, before his resentment for Dad became a terrible, tangible thing and Dean started really going for girls and never stopped. He wonders too if the silence was because he never knew what to say or if he never had to say anything and Dean just knew.

Sam brings his drink to his lips. Christ, he’s maudlin. But Dean is sitting across him, real in the daylight and guts inside him where they belong, so a touch of maudlin is probably okay.

“So...” Dean drags out, and Sam hates that Dean somehow doesn’t look uncomfortable at all. “What’d you tell your work... people?”

Dean says “people” the way most people say “vermin.” “Lunch meeting,” Sam answers. The clock on the oven says 5:18.

Dean laughs. “Wait, people actually have meetings during lunch? I thought that was just a movie thing.”

“Food makes people happy,” Sam protests, defensive even though he hates lunch meetings. “Besides, if you call it a meeting you can put it on the company card.”

“Sneaky.” Dean toasts and throws back another mouthful. “Dealt with a haunting a few years back. Easiest job I ever had, was barely in town for two days. Haunted apartment building. This landlord lady is grateful. I mean real grateful--she was like seventy, don’t give me that look--says she wants to pay me back. It was an easy gig, but she doesn’t know that, so I say sure. So this lady, uh, Mrs. Malkovitch, runs back to her apartment and hands me a grocery bag full of gift cards. At first, I’m on top of the world. Basically free money, right? They’re all gift cards to a restaurant. _A_ restaurant, singular. She has handed me a bag full of nothing but Arby’s gift cards. I couldn’t believe it. Like a hundred of these little red cards and they all say ‘We Have The Meats’ on them. Of course, I take them, but something’s bugging me the whole time that doesn’t hit me until I’m back in the car. And it’s not just that Arby’s loves advertising their, uh, ‘meats’ or that Mrs. Malkovitch is apparently obsessed with pizza sliders--I’m in Vermont. One of only two states in the entire goddamn country that doesn’t have a single Arby’s.

“And, uh, that’s the closest I’ve ever got to owning a company card.” Dean lifts his glass again, saluting Mrs. Malkovitch.

Dean can’t be serious. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly. And I’ve barely gone through half of them. Swear to God, if I ever eat another smokehouse brisket I’ll puke.”

Dean’s serious. Sam has barely exchanged words with his brother in almost fifteen years, and Dean thinks a story about a seventy-year-old landlord obsessed with subpar fast food is appropriate conversation--a soliloquy to gift cards and brisket. “Why don’t you just throw them away?”

Dean’s expression is two parts disapproval and one part incredulity. “Restaurant gift cards don’t expire, man! And none of them are used, and they’re all for like ten bucks. I’ve got five hundred dollars worth of gyros in my backseat. You don’t throw out five hundred dollars worth of gyros.”

“You do if they’re from Arby’s.”

Dean throws back his head and _laughs,_ and all the useless sounds his brother has been making wash over Sam like a spring rain. He just _talks_ and _says things_ , like it’s the easiest thing in the world and Sam, had no idea how much he missed it until right this moment.

“So, uh. You gonna tell me about that?” Sam points at Dean’s side. Dean touches his side again, but the stitches are still holding up.

“This? You don’t wanna hear about this.” But Sam does, he really does, so Dean spins his tale of intrigue and missing body parts. Before Sam got big enough to handle shotgun kickback, Dean would tell him about his hunts with Dad. He always glammed them up with saves and shots that showed a dubious understanding of the laws of physics. Every case was an action movie. Sam hated it. Always told Dean to shut up even as he leaned closer and gasped at all the right places. Hated that he wasn’t with Dean, always afraid that Dean would get hurt. It gave him nightmares, more than once. But Sam could never get him to stop and his storytelling has only gotten better with time. Now that old familiar feeling is back. He can’t pull away.

Sam plies him with alcohol and asks for stories. Once or twice, Dean tries to ask him about his job, his clients, but Sam redirects like a champ. What can he say? Dean tells him about a vamp nest he cleared out single-handedly, and, what, Sam’s supposed to come back with a hilarious anecdote about IP infringement? He’s not ashamed of his job--he likes his job, in theory--but it’s nothing. What he does is nothing compared to what Dean does. What nearly kills him. Sam soaks up every word like a sponge and knows he’s only going to torture himself with it later.

“This is a nice place you got.” Dean says it in a way that means “I hate it, but it’s expensive, which must mean it’s nice.” “Just you, or...?” Dean was pretty out of it last night, but there’s no way he missed that Sam lives alone. Dean’s smile isn’t quite reaching his eyes. Sam doesn’t dare wonder why he’s asking.

“No. No, ah.” Sam sits up a little straighter, looks down at his fumbling fingers. “Just me.”

“No girlfriend--?”

“No.” Sam last got laid about four months ago. He picked up some green-eyed junior associate at a charity ball and blew him in the bathroom. He got an okay handjob in return. He got the guy’s card but threw it in the trash as soon as he was out of sight. No one’s come home with him in years. “No girlfriend. You?”

Dean smiles into his glass, drags a finger around the rim, but doesn’t look happy. “Nah. But man, never had a lonely night. Girls, man. Coast to coast.”

“I bet.”

“It’s pretty sweet.”

No, girls have never been a hardship for Dean. The minute the clock ticked over to his fifteenth birthday, Dean was a boy transformed. Something turned his eyes brighter, made him stand a little taller, turned his mouth into the kiss in every song. Girls, who only glanced before, couldn’t look away. Sam saw his brother change and with it came a disquieting squirm in his belly. Dean never shoved it in his face, but an aura lingered around him from then on, dragging in the attention eligible (and ineligible) bachelorette in a hundred-yard radius. When Sam turned fifteen, he only got angry.

“So if there’s nobody--” Dean needs to let this go. Of all the bullshit he could’ve sunk his teeth into... “--then I guess nobody knows, huh?”

Sam’s heart stutters and twists and he doesn’t know why, because of course nobody knows. Why would anyone-- “Knows?”

Dean gestures broadly at himself, shrugging. “Still a dirty secret, huh? Crazy brother, family that fights monsters?”

The clarification is all at once relieving and infuriating. “Not something that really gets brought up over lunch meetings, Dean.”

“What, so nobody’s ever asked about your family? Not once?”

The truth is, not really. They did in school, sometimes. But now Sam navigates conversations with a steady hand on the wheel, steering around personal questions with such ease it’s practically second nature. Brady calls him “aloof,” a word he’s never heard anyone use outside of a novel. Jess called him “distant,” which rests somewhere near the top of why she canceled their engagement.

“I tell them my family’s dead,” Sam says flatly. He means for it to stab, but it’s also technically true. His mother’s dead. Dad might as well be dead. Dean--

_Dean could’ve died--_

\--is Shrodinger’s brother, basically dead until he looked him in the eyes yesterday. So he hasn’t got a family. He told Jess an effigy of the truth, though. He’s not sure what he told Dr. Scott.

He expects Dean to brush it off or snapback with something clever, like “I’m pretty good looking for a dead guy.” Instead, he tightens his hold on his glass until Sam fears it’ll shatter.

“Don’t you say that,” Dean snarls, ripping from his chest dark and wet. “You don’t know he’s dead _so don’t you say that._ ”

The man’s dead, but his ghost still manages to get between him and Dean. Ghosts: lingering, angry regrets, ruining everything around them--John Winchester to a T. Hell, he could be a ghost for all Sam knows. Not like there was a body to burn.

“Dean, it’s been, what, twelve years--”

“Thirteen.”

“--Twelve, thirteen.” He doesn’t say ‘who cares?’ because he’s bitter but he’s not _cruel._ “If he’s been gone that long he’s _gone_.”

“You know what? Screw you, Sam.” His glass punctuates his words, hitting the table with a _thunk_. “I know you hated the man, but I thought you at least respected him enough to care about what might have happened to him. He’s our father, for God’s sake!”

For a moment, Sam’s confused because he’s pretty sure he doesn’t hate his father. Hates everything he stood for, the way he mutilated their childhood, his way of life--but he supposes the distinction is unclear outside of the framework of his own mind. “Six months, Dean,” is what he hisses instead because he’s not sure if he’d even believe it himself if he actually said those words aloud: _I didn’t hate him._ “That’s how long it took for you to call after he disappeared. _Six months._ So don’t high-horse me about not giving a damn.”

“Excuse me for waiting after our last conversation ended with you telling me that if I called again I better be imparting my will!”

“You called during finals week, _which I told you about,_ and you were drunk!”

“Forget that, that doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter if I waited six months or six days! When I said he was missing you should have--”

“Should have what, Dean? Dropped everything? Rode around the country with you looking for him?”

“Yes!”

“Well, you didn’t ask!”

Silence. Sam’s not sure when he got to his feet, but his blood roars in his ears and his hands are balled into tight fists. If he squeezes any harder he might start bleeding. The sensation wouldn’t be unwelcome. Dean stares at him, tight-lipped, eyes bright as Sam’s ever seen, and something inside starts screaming--

_Keep looking at me, keep LOOKING AT ME--_

\--and Sam’s suddenly flush with righteousness and rage. Turns out he was right. He can’t hold his liquor for shit.

“You called me in the middle of the night,” Sam whispers, “and you were drunk, _I could tell you were drunk_ , and you said ‘Dad’s gone.’ That’s it. ‘Dad’s gone.’ I kept asking and asking what you meant, and that’s the only thing you would say for maybe half an hour: ‘Dad’s gone.’ Then finally you told me you found the car by some lake in Minnesota, but Dad wasn’t there. No clue why he was there, what he was hunting, if he was hunting at all. Nothing. Just vanished.

“And I waited. Just sat on the phone with you for another hour, waiting for you to say something, anything. I thought you passed out for a while there. And then you said you looked and looked but couldn’t find him. And that’s when I pieced it together. Dad hadn’t disappeared a few days or a few weeks ago. Not with the way you were talking. So I ask you when. And you tell me six months ago. Six goddamn months he’d been gone, and you called me drunk in the middle of the night six months later.

“So yeah, Dean. I didn’t drop my whole life the minute you _decided_ to call me. Because if you wanted me there you wouldn’t have waited. You wouldn’t have called me. You would have come and got me. But you thought the same thing I did--he’s dead. You just don’t want to admit it.”

Dean’s going to hit him. He sets his glass down oh-so-carefully and stands, and Sam can read the violence in every deliberate movement. Dean’s very calm about the whole thing, so by extension so is Sam. Dean’s going to hit him and it’s really going to hurt because Dean’s been fighting monsters his whole life, and Sam gave it up to do squats at the gym every Monday and Wednesday. Dean’s going to hit him and Sam’s going to let him, because what other choice is there, really? If Sam fights back, it’ll turn into an all-out brawl that he’ll certainly lose, and then Dean leaves, never to be seen again. If he orders Dean out of the apartment before Dean gets his hits in, Dean leaves, never to be seen again. So he’s gotta let Dean hit him. It’s science, really.

Sam does his best not to flinch and doesn’t quite manage it. It indeed hurts like a motherfucker, but not nearly as bad as he expected--Dean pulled his punch. He also only hits him once, which is equally as surprising. If he doesn’t put ice on it in the next five minutes his face is going swell something awful, but that’s about the extent of the damage. Overall, a very successful example of taking his licks.

“You don’t think I--” Dean swallows and drops his fist. “I’ve seen shit, Sammy. Stuff that... people don’t disappear like that. Not really. There’s always a sign. A body. Hell, a piece of a body. Something. And there was nothing. I just couldn’t...” There’s a brilliantly stupid moment where Sam wants to reach out and _comfort him_ or something, but he’s thankfully distracted by the painful throbbing of his face. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“Learned from the best,” Sam agrees solemnly, wondering a split second too late if that was too soon, but Dean doesn’t slug him again. Doesn’t look too pleased, but he’s not going anywhere.

When did that become his goal, exactly? To get Dean to stay? How did he allow Dean to do this to him?

Sam knows he’s... driven. It’s a very polite, complimentary term parroted by schoolmates and teachers and associates. He likes the idea of “driven”: of that gritty determination that gets things done and manifests dreams. Sam’s never afraid to put in the time and the work. But the ugly truth is that he’s not so much driven as he is obsessive. It’s a natural, comfortable state, fixating rather than exploring or speculating. When he submitted his application to Stanford, there wasn’t any doubt or hesitation. Earning a college education wasn’t easy on a foundation of a scattered childhood, but the roadmap was there, ironed into place by generations of picket-fenced Americans--latching on to it was effortless. Because at sixteen he decided, with little fanfare and silent conviction, he would go to college. And from that moment on, as Dean shot cans with effortless precision behind some farmhouse in another no-name town, it wasn’t a choice, it was a forgone conclusion.

He’d simply replaced one obsession with another. School was a comfortable obsession with predictable results. Not like--

So he’s obsessive, with addictive personality traits (so says Dr. Scott). So he doesn’t drink. And his medication is prescribed. And he went cold turkey on talking to his family (to Dean)... only for his brother to break into his condo and bleed all over the furniture.

Dean’s moved past him and dug into his freezer, dumping half the ice tray into a dishrag. He presses the bundle against Sam’s cheek with no delicacy, smirks when Sam twitches. “Gonna tell all the kids at school you got into a fight?”

Sam doesn’t let his hand linger on Dean’s when he takes the improvised ice pack, but Dean’s smirk slips away anyway. “Yeah,” Sam huffs. “I’m sure the group of professional lawyers will be really impressed.”

“You can say you got a few hits in, if you want. I won’t tell.”

“I’ll just make you taller so they don’t think I’m going around picking fights with midgets.”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

It’s not like the past fifteen years have been erased. It’s not magic. But it’s like a subtle skew in the universe has corrected itself and Sam has a brother again. It’s more than he ever expected or wanted and Sam knows now he truly is lost. That’s why they advise against going cold turkey--the relapse is so much worse.

*~*

They don’t stop talking until almost one in the morning. They don’t talk about Dad or girls, so it’s pleasant, for the most part. Dean talks about sirens and witches and ghosts. So, so, so many ghosts (“Never a shortage of pissed off dead folk,” Dean says). Sam lets himself get drunk (it’s not hard) and stops ducking questions about work even though he’s sure it bores Dean out of his skull. Sometimes Dean looks from Sam to his bottle of Oxy and it makes Sam a little sick, wondering what Dean is thinking, so he makes sure to ask for details about this or that poltergeist, or how big was that black dog? Sam ends up migrating across the room until they’re on opposite sides of the couch, finishing off a bottle of Jack, and if he “accidentally” knocks the pill bottle off the table and out of sight, well, who’s gonna call him on it? Not a Winchester, that’s for sure.

Sam’s a stupid drunk. It’s why he doesn’t drink (well, that, and the painful associations he pretends don’t exist). Losing control of his own reigns turns his stomach, both revolting and frightening. Jessica teased him about once or twice--she thought he was a “sweet” drunk--but he really does hate it. His tolerance is shot to hell, he knows that, but it wasn’t being smart that got him this far. It’s the excuse he uses to explain why he inches his way down the couch until he and Dean are side by side, knees brushing and thighs skimming.

His skin is too tight and he’s somehow breathing wrong. He’s tired, but every nerve screams alertness, a bombarding awareness of the narrowing space between them, where Dean looks and doesn’t look, how often Dean refills his glass--falling back into old habits. At sixteen and seventeen and eighteen, he’d perfected the art of seeing these things, acted like he wasn’t seeing these things, and learning to ignore them. He’s out of practice now, so little things catch him by surprise (did Dean always do that, pinch his lips after every swallow?), and he’s sure he’s staring openly, cataloging every second. In his drink-muddled brain, he’s pretty sure he’s allowed. _Entitled,_ even.

Dean doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t say anything as Sam gets closer (too close) and doesn’t say anything when Sam stares (painfully, _shamelessly_ ). It’s strangely polite of him but also just like Dean, to say nothing until the shit has really hit the fan. Dean’s always fancied himself a martyr, even if he never said in so many words. It’s an inherited trait, Sam’s fairly sure, a sign of a true Winchester--mutely bearing suffering for the Greater Good, whatever that is. Lord knows Dean being _Dean_ has caused Sam enough suffering. He thought he cast that aside, but he’s bearing that cross again with a smile and a finger of whiskey.

“It’s getting late,” Sam rasps like he meant to say two hours ago. He’s crossed that funny threshold of exhaustion where he should be collapsing, but his brain has decided if he’s still awake he must not be tired. Dean swirls his glass in a James Bond sort of way and gives Sam an odd look.

_He thinks I’m bitching out,_ Sam thinks, but he won’t be baited. His body is a temple. Sleep is worship or something. He can’t remember what self-help bullshit guide he stole that from, but it sounds right.

“S’not that late,” Dean mumbles, and it’s less mocking than Sam expects. He even looks away when he says it like he’s embarrassed.

Or uncomfortable. 

“I’m tired,” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. He’s still looking away.

What the hell is going on? Then Sam notices how his arm is slung over the back of the couch, how he’s breathing Dean’s air.

_It’s getting late,_ he’s said. But that’s not what it sounded like. It sounded like: _Come to b--_

“I’m very drunk,” Sam confesses. His hand, the one hanging over the back of the couch, touches Dean’s shoulder. Just a brush of fingertips--it could almost be accidental. Sam feels sick, but he doesn’t move his hand.

“I can tell, you baby,” Dean snarks, but his heart’s not in it. When Dean finally looks up, Sam almost wishes he didn’t--his eyes are stupid green and hard and bright. 

The way Dean’s looking at him. It’s not _normal._ This used to terrify him. Now he’s drunk and stupid.

“Sammy,” Dean starts. Sam’s intestines rearrange themselves. “Why did you leave?”

Sam blinks, confused. He hasn’t moved yet. He doesn’t think--oh, of course. Why did he leave _back then._ It’s an odd question. He wanted to go to college. He wanted to be normal. He didn’t want to hunt monsters for the rest of what would probably be a very short life. He explained it in great detail the night he left, screaming it at the top of his lungs at Dad. Dean heard everything. Heard everything, said nothing. Sam doesn’t understand how Dean could forget. What else is there to say?

He opens his mouth to say so. What comes out is: “Because of you.”

Dean recoils like he’s been shot. Looks worse than he did after nearly being clawed to death. For a moment, something like satisfaction settles over Sam because _he did that._ Dean, who’s always effortlessly held such sway over him, can feel what it’s like on the other end, measuring and counting and crumbling under every word. But that not-quite-satisfaction is quickly replaced with guilt when the expression doesn’t go away, like a bullet digging deep and stopping in your guts.

“No, no, no, Dean, listen--”

“I got it, Sam,” Dean interrupts stiffly. He puts his glass down, robotic and calm, and Sam gets pissed because _no_ , Dean does not get it. “It’s late, like you said, and we--”

“No, Dean, _listen,_ ” Sam insists. He’s grabbing at Dean’s face before he realizes what he’s doing, cupping his jaw with a miraculously light touch. He’s clumsy and his grip’s not firm at all, but Dean doesn’t shake him off. Looks a little shocked actually, but there’s no not-quite-satisfaction from that. He just wants Dean to _listen._

“I left because I wanted to be _normal,_ okay?” His voice cracks like a radio between stations. “I just wanted to be normal. I was going crazy and I had to get away. You get it? I just wanted...” He stops. He’s drunk. Is he _that_ drunk?

“You just wanted to be normal,” Dean finishes slowly. Sam nods, leaves the air empty. “You wanted to be normal, and you couldn’t be normal... with me.”

The halting end of Dean’s sentence--

_He knows._

Sam’s elated. Sam’s going to die. Sam’s holding his brother’s face, his thumb twitching along his cheekbone. This is why Sam doesn’t drink.

“I’m very drunk,” Sam whispers.

“Yeah, I got that.” Dean gently takes Sam’s hand away from his face, keeping their eyes locked. “You’re drunk and you’re tired.” Sam’s body is tired. His mind is awake and _screaming._ “You should go to bed.”

“Bed?”

“Yeah, go to bed. First, you lie down, then you close your eyes, then you’re asleep. Easy as pie.”

“The bed is--” Big. Too big. Empty. Maybe that’s why he keeps waking up in the middle of the night.

“That-a-way. I gotcha.” Dean helps him up, and it’s just like that time he was fourteen and pissy and stole a bottle of Dad’s Jack. Dean had to help him to bed, but back then he was laughing. Dean’s different, but Sam feels the same--awkward and sick from something other than alcohol.

Dean drops him on the bed and Sam hugs the pillow to his face, curling against the mattress. His body is a temple. His temple is wrecked. His brain loses against his body. He’s already dropping off but manages to cling to consciousness just a little longer when the bed dips beside him. Yeah, that’s fine. Dean shouldn’t have to sleep on the couch again. But Dean just sits there, probably waiting for him to close his eyes, so he does.

“You know, I don’t think we can be,” Dean murmurs.

“Hmm?”

“Normal. I don’t think either of us can be normal.”

If he could still string two thoughts together, he’d be indignant. He’s done a great job at being normal. Made a whole career out of. But it sounds like Dean’s saying something else entirely. He’s too stupid to put it together. He should sleep.

“Night, Sammy.”

Sam gives some garbled reply and the weight by his side vanishes. When he sleeps, it’s a reluctant escape.

*~*

Sam wakes up at four, but only stays up long enough to text Rochelle a confession that he is indeed sick, but he’ll still call Mrs. Pearson before noon. Then he rolls over, swallows a mouthful of water (it doesn’t do nearly enough to kill the taste in his mouth), and passes out again.

There are dreams, murky and hot. He’s waking up again but doesn’t want to. Sam grabs on to that place between asleep and awake and keeps his eyes shut even as his thoughts try to rearrange themselves into manageable shapes. His hips grind lethargic, smooth circles into the mattress. Anticipation builds slow between his thighs. It’s a good, lazy feeling, so much so that bothering to reach down into his pants seems silly.

This isn’t his usual method. Like most things, he usually goes about it in an efficient manner: in the shower, where it’s less messy, before bed so it’s easier to drop off. Sometimes he’ll queue up porn beforehand, just for reference, but usually relies on his own imagination or doesn’t think of anything at all. Can be a bit of a chore sometimes, if he’s honest. This is different. More... organic? Somehow? He smiles into his pillow. Dean would give him so much shit for that. Organic masturbation.

_Dean._

His thighs and belly clench. He’s not awake enough to shove the thought aside, so it rolls over him, down to his toes. It’s not much of a thought. Just Dean in abstract, something defined by engine oil, worn leather, and the color green. Sam clings to the mugginess of dreams so when his hips turn urgent, there’s no guilt to temper them.

The mattress isn’t enough anymore, but if he moves too much he’ll break the spell preserving his sanity. He compromises by _slowly_ sliding one arm down to press his palm to his groin. Barely even squeezes, just gives himself more friction. His arm’s a little numb, so it feels funny. Like his arm belongs to someone else.

Thoughts coalesce, molding into something solid. He tries desperately to keep things faceless, but it’s too late--trying not to think of something only guarantees it’ll manifest.

He’d probably be rough. With Sam, at least. Women, he’s afraid of breaking, but Sam--Sam, they’ve messed each other up so much it wouldn’t matter. It’d be a fight. Push and pull, a tug-o-war for control (he pushes the heel of his hand more firmly against his groin). Sam’d lose, of course- _-he’s_ got an advantage, more practiced at fighting and living and sex. Yeah, he’d win in the end, pin Sam down, smirking the whole time ( _shitshitshit_ , he’s supposed to be keeping things faceless). Ask him if he gives.

Yes, he’d give _anything--_

And he’d take. Hard. Brutal. It’d be punishment (maybe he deserves it, wants it--), but so fucking perfect. So worth the waiting, the obsessing. His weight keeping him pinned, taking, taking back what he deserved, what Sam took from him. He’d work him over, make Sam scream (he’s groaning, now, just a little), make it impossible to be quiet, make sure everyone heard--

Wonders, idly, if Dean can hear him.

That’s it. Sam lifts up, jams his hand down the front of his pants, down his briefs. Pulls on his dick once, twice--then he’s coming hot and needy and shameful over his hand. It’s stupid good and lasts a long time. He bites his lower lip, but the noises escaping are too high-pitched to be muffled completely. Even when everything is too sensitive to the touch, he sneaks his hand down farther, presses firmly against his perineum once, shudders, and collapses.

Sam opens his eyes.

He’s awake now, for real this time. He frees his hand and looks at it, pinches his fingers together and spreads them apart, observing the white tackiness between them. Gross. He wipes his hand on the bedspread (gross, gross) and drops his face into the pillow, allowing himself to not breathe for a second. The endorphins are retreating and the hangover is knocking at his door.

Door.

He pushes upright and twists to look behind him.

The door is open.

Dean put him to bed last night and didn’t shut the door. A ball of worms writhes in the hollow of Sam’s chest. He rubbed off like a goddamn teenager and Dean was right outside--

Reject, repress, move forward. He’s still wearing his clothes from yesterday; his pants are wrinkled to shit, but if he gets them off now at least they won’t stain. He rolls out of bed steps out of his pants, shaking them out and holding the crotch up to his eye to examine. Cleanish. Enough that he won’t be ashamed when they go to dry cleaners. He folds them and drapes them over the closet door.

Sam moves to remove his briefs, but pauses, glancing back to the open bedroom door. He closes it just enough that there’s no telling click, then finishes stripping. He sticks the underwear in the bottom of the laundry pile so a future Sam can handle that bit of regret and flees to the shower. He scrubs himself hard and fast, making sure not to enjoy it at all.

Much to his dread, when Sam emerges he finds Dean awake and alert, scrolling through his phone with one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. The second the smell hits him, Sam spins on his heel, dashes back to the bathroom, and sticks his head in the toilet. Dean’s laughter rattles in his head like a machine gun.

“Dude, you have no food in your house,” Dean says, leaning on the doorframe to watch Sam barf. “And I think your coffee maker is alive.”

Sam rests his head on the cool rim of the toilet bowl. “The fridge is full,” he mumbles. Dean might be right about the coffee maker. Why does a coffee maker need Bluetooth?

“Full of rabbit food,” Dean dismisses. “I need real goddamn food. Something with eggs and bacon and grease--”

Sam groans and hacks into the bowl. Dean cackles and slurps his coffee. “We’re going out for breakfast. C’mon, up-and-at-’em.”

“No,” Sam moans.

“No?”

Sam gestures wildly behind himself. “You-You’re not picking. We’re not going to-to-to goddamn _Arby’s_ or something--”

“Sausage, eggs, and cheese biscuits, with extra grease,” Dean coos. “With a side of potato cakes!”

Sam spends a good five minutes retching into the toilet. It’s not until later, when light and sound are tolerable again, that he realizes how pink Dean’s face was and the tremor in his hands. He doesn’t examine the revelations longer than a moment--he shoves them down, locks them away, and doesn’t look directly at them. If he’s Pandora, then there’s only one thing left to do--leave the damn box alone and don’t let hope escape.

*~*

Really it's late enough to be called brunch, which Sam does. The look on Dean’s face is worth the juvenile “see-food” joke he’s punished with later. Sam doesn’t understand why Dean’s mortified by the existence of an additional meal in the day--guy can pack it away like a hobbit, swear-to-god--but Dean’s indignity at going out for “hipster food” is delightful to witness.

There’s a moment of confusion before they leave where Dean waits for Sam to get into the Impala. Sam almost does; looks at the door, through the window, sees just enough of the interior that a hundred childhood memories race to the forefront of his mind. Can see himself stretching his legs out and Dean smacking his hand away from the radio. It's like having a heart-attack in slow motion as he stares, breath and chest hitching, but it only lasts a second. He gets in the Tesla, hoping it looks that was his plan all along, and shoots quick directions to Dean. Dean doesn’t say anything about it, thankfully, but he’s too slow to mask the funny look he gives Sam.

Sam leads them to a cafe that’s pretentious as fuck, but he’s pretty sure even Dean can’t turn his nose up at their omelets. Sam’s body’s still furious enough with him that he can only manage toast and fruit, but watching Dean attack his omelet makes even that unpalatable. He nibbles on his toast, stomach churning, but otherwise content. He can’t remember ever feeling like this. It’s surreal, watching Dean cut into his overpriced food, murmur sly, snide asides about the patrons and servers, inviting Sam into his jokes with a smile. Time is suspended in a soap bubble.

“How long you playing hooky for?” Dean asks. He still has the menu, squinting at it between bites. Sam knew agreeing to pay would bite him in the ass.

“I should go back tomorrow,” Sam replies. Really he should go back _today_ \--he hasn’t been away longer than a few hours since he started the firm--but he tries not to think about it. “There’s a lot going on.”

“Right, right. Saving the world one gavel bang at a time.” Dean’s eye roll isn’t spiteful, but Sam’s prickled anyway.

“We represent over a hundred green start-ups and tech companies,” Sam protests. “Not to mention all the dozens of charities. And every member of the firm is required to do twice as many pro bono hours than recommended by the state--”

“Woah, woah, I’m just messing with you. I know you’re doing your thing. You guys got some fancy law award or something last year, right?”

Sam almost snaps back--it’s not just “some fancy law award,” it was awarded by the ABA--but stops before the words can form. They hadn’t talked about that last night. Admittedly, parts of last night are hazy, but he’s sure that, or any other award, hadn’t come up. Which means Dean looked it up on his own. Now that he thinks about it, he never did get out of Dean how he knew where Sam lived. Has Dean been... checking up on him?

Sam’s throat closes up and he looks down at his plate. Christ. Sam spent years trying to forget he even had a family, pretending he sprang from the earth fully formed, while Dean looked up his address and checked the news for info on his firm in between arrest warrants. He’d assumed Dean was just as eager to forget about him as Sam was to forget about Dean. But, of course, he forgot the most important thing about Dean: Dean is loyal to a painful fault. More loyal than any soldier to their country, then any dog to their master. Dean’s loyalty split them apart in the first place. Funny how he forgot something so fundamental.

“Sam?”

“Yeah? I mean, uh, yeah.” He clears his throat and spears a slice of melon to pop into his mouth, but he’s recovered far too slow. Dean’s peering at him, that stupid, brotherly look of concern on his face. Who did he piss off in a past life to deserve this? “Important work. Helps a lot of people.”

In theory. He remembers a brief moment in his first year of law school when he was so sure he’d go into family law. Sometimes, when he had a spare hour to breathe between classes and studying, he’d go to the courthouse and take notes in the spectator seats. He picked the courtrooms at random, but once he managed to sit in on divorce proceedings involving a couple and their daughter. The parents contested everything, down to every piece in a collection of ugly commemorative plates that Sam couldn’t imagine _anyone_ actually wanting. The daughter they saved for last. She hardly moved or spoke the entire time, swallowed up by the shouting, suffocating a stuffed toy dog between her tiny fists. Sam saw her face only once, face stained with tears as she left the courtroom. Their eyes met and in that moment family law was off the table. He can’t even remember which parent won. Just that girl’s face. She reminded him of Dean.

Dean’s still squinting at him. “It’s not a big deal,” he continues. “It’s not like I rescued the family cat from a burning building while fighting off a vampire one-handed.”

The deflection is weak but apparently works. Dean smiles, tapping his fork against his plate. “Dog,” he corrects. “The family dog. And it was two vampires.”

Sam snorts and grins. “My mistake. And then the neighborhood hoisted you on their shoulders and carried you through the streets chanting your name, right?”

“Actually, the dad punched me. And that damn chihuahua pissed on my favorite shirt.”

“Oof. What a way to treat the hero of the hour.”

“That’s me. Big hero.” Dean’s smile slips. Dean goes quiet and that’s never a good sign. Sam says nothing, just tilts his head. Dean shrugs and the smile claws its way back on to his face. It sits unconvincingly on his lips. “Ah, you know. Just seems like I’m better at the hunting things than the saving people part of the job these days. I, uh, don’t get as many clean wins as I’d like.”

It’s so easy to get caught up in Dean’s pulp fiction retellings, all his triumphs and glories; all the blood and the terrors and the _costs_ get shoved under the rug. Hunters aren’t preventative. They’re clean up. Even on the best days, someone usually has to die before Dean shows up. And on the worst days, he’s leaving behind more bodies than he found.

Sam doesn’t regret walking away. _He doesn’t._ But that violent itch under his skin shouts “COWARD” and he’s suddenly furious that he can’t remember the names or faces of those dead campers from the summer before ninth grade.

“Ah, well, you know. It’s the job.” Sam doesn’t _want_ to know. But now he can’t stop thinking about it. “Speaking of--” Dean digs his phone out of his pocket. A few taps and then he slides it across the table. “Found a job. I’m thinking vengeful spirit, but I guess it could be some pissed off night janitor or something. Worth a look either way.”

_THIRD DEATH IN FOUR MONTHS AT HIGHLAND MALL--MALL BLAMES GAS LEAK,_ reads the headline on Dean’s phone. Sam skims the article. “What makes you think it's not a gas leak like they’re saying? Says here they all asphyxiated.”

“Well, technically they did. But not by gas. By blood.”

“They _drowned in blood?_ How the hell do you know that?”

“I know a coroner down there, passed the article along. She says every victim had a mix of blood and water in their lungs when they opened them up.”

“No chance they all fell into a fountain I’m guessing.”

“Everyone of them was bone dry and nowhere near any bathrooms or fountains. Or knives.” Sam looks up. Dean is positively _beaming_. “It’s like _Chopping Mall_ with ghosts, man. I mean, haunted mall. How awesome is that?”

“Not awesome for the dying mall industry, I can tell you that.” Sam pushes the phone back to Dean. “So, why spirit? Why not, I dunno, a witch?”

“Well, the only thing the vics have in common is that they worked at the mall. Witches are particular about their targets, but they’re usually smart enough not to kill in a central location. Identical M.O.s in one spot? Says ghost to me.”

Sam nods--sounds like a solid case--then meets Dean’s eyes. Dean still brims with excitement; even a little flush. For a haunting? Ghosts shouldn’t be underestimated, of course. Pissing one off could still make you very dead. But ghosts are a dime a dozen. Why would he--

Dean’s looking at him _expectantly;_ a call waiting for a response. They’ve been talking shop. They’ve been talking shop like Dean expects him to--

“Dean--”

“I figured I’d head out soon, but it’s not a long drive. Maybe five hours or so. Enough time to grab a motel and some grub before getting into the nitty-gritty.”

“Dean.”

“Could probably scope out the place tonight. They shut the whole thing down, and I’m not exactly worried about Paul Blart.”

“Dean. I can’t go with you.”

Dean’s mouth snaps shut. His expression shutters, his smile twisting at the corners. Neither of them breathes. Around them, the world inexplicably keeps moving. Sam’s not sure who he despises more at the moment. Dean, for saying too much at the exact wrong moments, or himself, for destroying the peace with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Dean shoves his phone back into his jeans. “Who’s asking?” he mutters. He looks down at his plate, knocks the glass table twice, picks up his fork, drops it, then gets to his feet. 

“You were going to though.” Dean won’t look at him. Sam swallows back the urge to continue. _You were, weren’t you?_ Like he needs to add sounding like a teenage girl to his crimes.

Dean pulls out his keys. “Should get going. Like I said.”

“Dean, c’mon. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Really? Not sure what else that could possibly mean. And, besides, _I didn’t ask._ ”

Like he didn’t ask when Dad disappeared. Like he wouldn’t let Sam ask when he left for Stanford.

But he did ask. Once.

“Dean, I said I can’t go with you. I didn’t say I didn’t want to.”

Dean doesn’t look at him right away. He thumbs his keys and looks at Sam out of the corner of his eye like he thinks he misheard. He worries his lower lip between his teeth and Sam doesn’t allow himself to obsess over it for even a second. “What do you mean?”

“C’mon. Let’s go for a walk.” Dean shoots him an incredulous look. “Seriously. Let’s go.” Sam drops what he’s sure is too much money on the table (he’s not going to risk waiting for the check) and rises. The door is past Dean, and when he strides by he doesn’t check if Dean will follow. He has to.

Right?

Sam only breathes again when Dean falls in step beside him at the crosswalk.

*~*

The park Sam leads them to isn’t too out of the way and not too crowded. He likes running the paths winding around the sequoias and stopping at the creek to watch the ducks. A little out of the way to do it all the time, but it's nice. Private, at this time of day. He shares none of this with Dean, who walks with him in silence, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He’s looking up at the trees, though. Maybe he likes them.

“So?” Dean says. “You gonna keep me in suspense forever? I do have places to be, you know.”

Maybe not. Sam looks up too, hoping to see whatever his brother does. “I built a life here, Dean. A lot of time and work.”

Dean snorts. “I can tell. Really living life to the fullest, Sammy. Carpe diem and all that jazz.”

Ouch. Sam doesn’t let it distract him. “Look, all I’m saying is I can’t walk away from that.”

“Won’t.”

“What?”

“You can do whatever you want, Sam. You just won’t.”

It hurt less when Dean punched him. Those kinds of cheap shots Sam can handle. “That’s not--that’s not what I’m getting at.”

“Right.”

“It’s _not,_ look--” Sam stops them on a bridge arcing over the creek. He digs his fingers into the wood and sighs. “I know how I live, okay? I know it doesn’t...” Lead anywhere. Matter to you. Mean anything. “I know. But I’ve been at it for a long time. I’ve got a career. A successful law firm. My name’s on the letterhead, man. I’m kind of established.”

“And so humble too.”

“What I’m saying is people know me. I had lunch with Steve Jobs once. I’ve got talks on YouTube.”

“I know,” Dean murmurs low. Sam’s not touching that with a ten-foot pole even though he _desperately_ wants to.

“I can’t hunt, Dean. I can’t interview witnesses or pretend I’m a fed. God forbid I got caught breaking into a mortuary or exhuming a corpse. I’d be recognized. And it wouldn’t take them too long to put it together that we’re brothers. They’d use me to get to you, man.”

That’s presumptuous of him, thinking he’s valuable enough to Dean that his arrest or imprisonment or _whatever_ would matter. But Dean crosses his arms on the railing next to Sam and nods. It shouldn’t make his heart leap, but it does anyway.

“My famous little brother,” Dean jokes. Sam smiles.

“I wouldn’t go that far. You’re probably more famous than me.”

“Only to freaks obsessed with serial killers like you,” Dean says, bumping their shoulders together. Sam blushes a bit. He’d hoped Dean had forgotten about that little phase. “But you’re right. I get it, I do. I just...” Dean sighs. He doesn’t look angry or even disappointed. More... wistful. “I don’t think it’d be so bad, you and me. We’d make a good team.”

Sam can see it, too--them crisscrossing the country together, hunting monsters. Just him, the Impala, the open road, and Dean. Sam remembers years of hormonal teenage agony and loathes how he longs to recreate it. He doesn’t deserve an ounce of the faith Dean has in him.

“I haven’t hunted anything in years,” Sam says, settling on his elbows. “I’d just get in your way.”

“I’d get you up to speed,” Dean dismisses. “It’s all still up there in that big brain of yours. You don’t forget stuff like that. Besides, it’s not like you’re out of shape.”

There’s something... _odd_ about the way Dean says that last sentence. Dean’s gaze rakes over his body, quick as lightning, then darts away just as fast. Sam’s gotten looks like that before. Usually at the gym, but sometimes at work functions, like that charity gig where he picked up that green-eyed associate.

Christ, he’s losing his mind. Or lost it already. It’s the only explanation for why he pulls his phone out of his pocket and thumbs it to life. “Give me your number.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Awful forward of you.”

Jesus. Everything’s an uphill battle with him. “Dean, seriously.”

“Sam, what’s the poi--”

“I don’t want it to be another fifteen years.” There. Cards on the table. Sam’s stomach leaps in dread and a klaxon goes off in the back of his head but he can’t take it back. Won’t take it back. He can’t ever tell the whole truth, but he can at least say this. “I thought I could handle it when you showed up. Thought I’d shove you out the door and everything would go back to normal. But now... I screwed up cutting you out my life, Dean. I never wanted to be a hunter, but I didn’t want to stop being your brother. But I did this to us. And I can’t undo it, but maybe I can fix it. If you let me.”

Three days ago, Sam didn’t know if Dean was dead or alive and refused to care. Now, the idea of Dean disappearing from his life again leaves him terrified and scrambling for a lifeline. If Dean rejects him, like he has every right too, Sam’s not sure how he can realign his life around the new reality of Dean as more than a memory. Of living with the knowledge of a Dean covered in scars and the softness carved away from his face. Of knowing there’s a Dean who might be dead or alive and he’d never know.

Dean yanks Sam's phone out of his hand. His response is immediate, indignant, and brotherly, and betrays none of his panic. “Hey--”

“Calm down, princess,” Dean snips, poking way harder at Sam’s iPhone than he’s comfortable with. “I’ve got three different phones, I figured this was faster.”

Sam stares, stunned, as Dean enters his contact info. “Just like that?” he blurts, then winces. He could kick himself. Gift horse, mouth, _just shut up._ Dean tosses his phone back when he’s done with a shrug.

“Yeah, well. Fifteen years is a long time.” The corner of Dean’s eyes crinkle and Sam’s heart cracks open and runs over with warmth. “I screwed up too, Sam. I shouldn’t have--”

_I shouldn’t have let you go._ Sam hears the words, clear as a bell. _I shouldn’t have let you go._

But Dean hesitates and starts over. “I should have come to get you. When Dad... I shoulda got you.”

Not what he wanted, but close enough. They sit in silence for a while, paying no attention to the joggers or the ducks or the wind. Sam basks in Dean’s presence and doesn’t linger on the fragility of hope. He taps out a text to the first number Dean listed--just a simple _This is Sam_ \--and puts his phone away. On cue Dean’s phone buzzes. Dean rolls his eyes as he reads the message.

“Creative,” he snarks.

“Call me if you need anything,” Sam says softly.

“Sure thing.”

Dean doesn’t _get it._ “I’m serious, Dean. If you need anything, a hideout, a cover, cash--”

Dean wrinkles his nose. “I’m not some charity case, Sam. I don’t need your money.”

“Bullshit,” Sam snaps. “It’s not like hunting is lucrative. This isn’t a charity. Think of it as an investment. Or a sponsorship.”

“So now I’m a little league team?”

“I’m trying to help.” Sam dips his head to hide because his voice is getting kind of thick and runny. “This is the only way I can help you. I’m sitting at a desk and you’re out there getting ripped open, and this is the only thing I can--”

If Sam cries now he's never leaving his condo again. But he’s cut off by a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll call.”

“You swear?”

It’s like he’s five and Dean’s nine when Dean hooked their pinky fingers together and everything was solemn and grave in a way it can only be between children. Dean at forty grins to disperse some of that grim energy, but is deadly serious when he squeezes his shoulder and replies with: “Promise.”

“Good,” Sam croaks. He clears his throat and tries again. “Good. That’s good.”

Dean’s hand remains on his shoulder, a comfortable weight that should feel alien, but doesn’t. Sam doesn’t lean into it or even acknowledge it's there even as he learns (relearns) the shape and heat of it. Dean searches his face, and Sam doesn’t want to know what he reads there, but suddenly he’s being pulled into a hug.

His spine tightens like a bowstring. Sam can’t remember the last time they hugged. Dean used to hug him all the time when they were little. They trickled away and then stopped as they grew older, which is natural, Sam supposes. But he literally can’t remember the last time and Sam slams his eyes shut before he breaks his no-crying vow immediately.

“Sorry,” Dean huffs into his ear and tries to pull away. The tension in his body thrums and _snaps,_ and Sam wraps his arms around Dean tight as he can, digging his fingers into the leather jacket.

He’s completely dismantled his life. One fracture in the form of Dean Winchester and the whole thing falls apart. Sam will care tomorrow, maybe. Right now, he doesn’t give a shit.

They separate at the same time and they both have the sense to look embarrassed, even if it’s just the redwoods watching. “I guess you should be heading out, huh?” Sam tries for casual and lands in the ballpark of mildly awkward. “Haunted Chopping Mall?”

“Yeah. That’s right.” Dean’s smirk radiates insincerity like a neon sign. “Gotta save the mallrats.”

“Pretty sure that’s not a thing anymore.”

“What do they call people who hang out at malls, then?”

“Desperate, I think.”

They make their way back to the cars in wordless agreement, chatting instead about how Kevin Smith’s second film is indeed flawed, but underrated, and determining the best abandoned mall to shoot a zombie movie in. Dean is trying to convince Sam, unsuccessfully, to watch _The Walking Dead,_ by the time they reach the cafe.

“You’re morbid.”

“And you’re boring. And we all know which is worse.”

“I’m not apologizing for _Downton Abbey._ ” Sam risks running a hand over the hood of the Impala. Dean’s smile is warm and genuine this time around.

“Boring,” Dean repeats. He pops open the driver-side door. “I’ll be seeing you, Sammy.”

“Yeah, Dean.” Sam pats hood one more time--it’s hot and calls at him like a siren song--and steps away. “Be seeing you. Be safe out there.”

_Don’t you die. Don’t you dare die. Not now,_ is what he means. _You’re not allowed._ It’s childish and ineffective as prayer. Sam still wishes fervently down to his soul. _Don’t die._

“Safe as I can be,” Dean acquiesces, and that’ll have to be enough. He nods and climbs inside his baby. She roars to life, Dean pulls away, and then he’s gone.

*~*

The next few hours pass in a haze. It’s eleven-fifty by the time he remembers to call Mrs. Pearson and he’s not entirely sure what he says to her. She doesn’t shout or hang up on him, so he supposes it worked out all right.

Sam thinks about going for a run, but he’s got no energy. Not tired, exactly, but drained. The opposite of the creepy-crawly prickling beneath his skin that usually gets him out the door. Aimless and apathetic. Thinks about calling Dr. Scott, but decides against that too. He needs to get his story straight first.

In the end, he goes back to his condo to lie down. It’s not like he couldn’t use the rest. This time, he doesn’t balk at the evidence of Dean’s stay scattered here and there. He cleans up because he can’t help it, and there’s no grim determination fueling him. He just hates a mess.

Dean can be a total pig, but he is one of the few people where the claims of “I have a system!” appeared to be true. He thrives in disarray, but always knows where everything is and just in the way he wants it. It made sense, in a way. Can’t be careless on the job, not with weapons or research--

Sam pauses. Dean’s on the road right now. Won’t reach his destination for another two hours or so. That’s plenty of time.

The Highland Mall has a public website, the welcome banner celebrating the mall’s fortieth anniversary. The original blueprints are also registered with the county and available for viewing online. It all comes together like links in a chain: the inconsistencies with the blueprints and the public maps, the history of accidents centered around the north-east corner of the building, the sordid land deals in the eighties, a suicide in the nineties. In an hour and a half, Sam’s found his suspect in the form of one James H. Sullivan, former real estate developer, deceased. Sam packages all his research in carefully titled pdfs. Dean’s contact info includes an email address and he sends the whole thing off only a little trepidation. Research he can do. Research is natural as breathing.

_Check your email,_ he texts to Dean. Only feels a little bit like a teenage girl while he waits for a reply, checking his phone a restrained once a minute.

_K,_ Dean replies after ten minutes. Nothing to overthink there. Another five minutes pass. _Good work._

Sam thought he had pride in his work. It pales in comparison to relishing in Dean’s simple praise. He _glows._ It’s pathetic.

_Anytime,_ he sends.

Sam went fifteen years without seeing his brother. Now it hasn’t even been five hours and he knows another fifteen year gap will kill him. _Addictive personality traits,_ Dr. Scott said. Sam falls back on that old familiar feeling and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] Sam's affirmation shamelessly stolen from [here](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/affirmations_b_3527028).


End file.
